Adam Driver asked NASA what would happen if a dinosaur-killing asteroid crashed into Earth today?

According to media reports, Adam Driver's new film 65 hit theaters earlier this month, but fell short of expectations. Directed by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, the film is based on the story of an astronaut who fell to Earth 65 million years ago,  when dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth. It tells the story of his efforts to survive when the asteroid Chicxulub (supposedly 10-15 km wide) crashes into Earth, causing the mass extinction of nearly every species that exists on 

 of our planets. we. 

 

 While the film was still showing in theaters, Driver posed a question to NASA and asked what would happen if such an asteroid struck Earth today. Thanks to astronomer Kelly Fast, manager of the Near-Earth Object Observation Program at NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, we can all relax  now.

 

 Although there are thousands of near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) lurking and rushing through the solar system, none of them pose a present threat. to our planet, according to  data collected by NASA to date. "The good thing is that we're really not worried about asteroids of that size (the thing that killed the dinosaurs)," Fast said in the video. "These big ones - most of them have been found; they're easier to spot, they're less numerous," she said. "But there are  still 

 asteroids that have been found that aren't quite as large but are still  of a size that could cause damage if they collide," Fast added. 

 

This is where the Office of the Coordination of Planetary Defense comes in as it will announce an impending threat, location impacts and  potential impacts will occur. In November 2021, NASA ramped up efforts to develop a defense mechanism to protect our planet at the launch of the DART (Dual Asteroid Redirection Test) mission.  The mission came to fruition on September 26, 2022, when the refrigerator-sized DART crashed into Dimorphos, a lunar asteroid  530 feet (160 meters) in diameter orbiting a large asteroid named Didymos (2 560 feet or 780 meters wide). Data collected after the collision revealed that Dimorphos' orbit was altered for 32 minutes, providing evidence that an asteroid's orbit could be artificially altered. Over the coming years, NASA will scale up this technology to destroy an incoming asteroid, should an asteroid approach our 

 planets.