As you may already know, the Dinosaurs were wiped off the planet because of an asteroid (of the class of planet killers, but more about that later). And that can happen anytime with humanity and an asteroid hitting Earth! Although unlikely, it is still a very real problem, as scientists don't know how many percent of "city killers" they found using sky survey stations like the Catalina Sky Survey in Catalina, USA. This fact is very scary, as if one of these uncovered asteroids were to impact Earth, we would be doomed. As a country killer will not just "kill" a country, but it can also create a cloud of dirt, which will kill any crops, infect water sources, and this will probably lead to livestock dying. Now to the Scary part. We don't have that many options to defend ourselves from such impacts! As our options right now are the following:

1. The Hammer Mission, which is a similar mission to DART, where in September 2022, they launched a small spacecraft into a meteor orbiting around Didymos, which had to change its orbit by 30 seconds, but it ended up changing it by 32 minutes!
2. Nuke the Asteroid. Although you might think this will be more successful, YOU ARE WRONG, as if you nuke it, the asteroid is going to rebuild itself and potentially get bigger, but you can vaporize a part of the asteroid for it to change its orbit so it barely misses Earth. Additionally, the chance of a global catastrophe through an asteroid is only about 1 in a million in the next ~70 years.

What are the "Country Killers"

The so-called Country Killers are a type of asteroid that is about 140m to 1km big. Here are the other nicknames for sizes of asteroids:

Dust–Meteoroid (mm to ~1 m)

Size: tiny grains up to ~1 meter Effect: burns up in the atmosphere (shooting stars) Damage: none on the ground Example: most meteors you see in the sky

Fireball / Small Meteor (1–20 m)

Size: up to a small building Effect: airburst explosion in the atmosphere Damage: can break windows, minor local damage Example: Chelyabinsk meteor (2013)

City Killer (20–140 m)

Size: from a football field to a small mountain Effect: likely airburst or ground impact Damage: destroys a city or large urban area Note: most commonly used “risk category” in media

Regional / “Country Killer” (140 m – 1 km)

Size: large mountain scale Effect: ground impact with crater, shockwaves Damage: can destroy entire regions or countries, cause fires, and climate disruption Note: not official, but often used for explanation

Global Catastrophe Impactor / Planet Killer (1–10 km)

Size: small mountain to large mountain range Effect: massive dust clouds, global climate effects (“impact winter”) Damage: global crop failure, mass extinction risk Example: dinosaur-killing asteroid (~10 km) ☠️ Extinction-Level / Planet Killer (10+ km) Size: very large asteroid or comet Effect: extreme heat, firestorms, long-term climate collapse Damage: global extinction event, civilization collapse Rarity: extremely rare over Earth’s history

                                    Note:

Those names are not recognized by NASA! If you want to launch your own asteroid, go to: https://neal.fun/asteroid-launcher/