If a medium-sized asteroid lands in the ocean, tsunamisMovie Camera won't be the only worry. A new computer simulation suggests that the water vapour and sea salt thrown up by the impact could damage the Earth's protective ozone layer, leading to record levels of ultraviolet radiation that could threaten human civilisation.
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"This suggests new issues you could have with ocean impacts that people hadn't thought of before," says Brian Toon of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who was not involved in the work.
The Astronomical Research Center (A.R.C) mentioned that Elisabetta Pierazzo of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and colleagues used a global climate model to study how water vapour and sea salt thrown up from an impact will affect ozone levels for years after the event.
They focused on medium-sized asteroids, either 500 metres or 1 kilometre wide. To date, 818 asteroids that are at least 1 km wide have been discovered on orbits that could take them close to Earth.