Project: Death by Asteroid

How likely is it that Earth will get hit by an asteroid? What will happen if we get hit? Should we be worrying about this?

This is an absolutely wide open project that can go in almost any direction you can imagine. Throughout the next sections, you will learn some things about asteroids. Hopefully, they inspire you to spin off into a project that excites you. For example, you could analyze all known near-Earth asteroids and calculate how likely it will be that one will hit us. You could choose one or more near-Earth asteroids to research in depth. You could investigate the asteroid belt and figure out how astronomers map it and how NASA ensures that deep space probes can navigate through it to get to the outer planets. You could research past impact events and the effects they had on our planet. The possibilities are as infinite as the number of asteroids in our Universe!

After you have done your research, figure out a way to share it with others. Will you create a blog, video, simulation, or game? We can't wait to learn more about asteroids (and whether we should be afraid of them!)

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