[imagesource: Discovery Channel]

If you suffer from climate anxiety, I suggest you look away now.

The simulation, exploring what would happen if a 500-kilometre-wide asteroid collided with Earth, doesn’t really make for cosy viewing.

It initially aired on Discovery Channel in 2005 but has come back into the spotlight since NASA’s DART mission, which saw a spaceship sent to test if we could potentially knock an asteroid off course.

That was a success, although it’s worth bearing in mind that the mission shifted Dimorphos, a way smaller asteroid at 161 metres in width.

Okay, look, an asteroid with enough weight to completely annihilate our planet is not going to happen anytime soon, notes Nerdist, not that there’s much anyone can do about it anyway.

If it were to happen, Earth would be vaporised within a day as bellowing fire and rock circumnavigated the globe:

Even though the simulated asteroid “hits” the Pacific Ocean, you can see how complete destruction spreads rapidly as the oceans boil from the heat, the Himalayan snow evaporates instantly, and the Earth’s crust peels back.

Stunning.

I, personally, quite like the idea of going down with a Pink Floyd jam hitting off in the background, but some may prefer narration from scientists.

Here’s the full snippet from the doccie Miracle Planet:

Amazingly and terrifyingly, there are those in the science community who believe that an event like this has already happened multiple times on Earth.

Not just smaller impacts, by the way, which have and do happen.

The bigger impacts are said to basically start life on Earth, a process that takes thousands of years but generates the oceans, atmosphere, and life-blood all over again each time.

Destruction is creation, after all.

[source:nerdist]