An asteroid bigger than the Empire State Constructing is heading in the direction of Earth – and one man has detailed his function in Nasa’s billion-dollar plan to cease it earlier than it is too late.The snappily-named 101955 Bennu is 490 metres throughout – nearly 50m bigger than the New York Metropolis landmark – that means any affect with Earth might be cataclysmic.The asteroid solely has a one in 1,750 likelihood of truly hitting us – and even then, we’ll have to attend for September 24, 2182 – however Nasa has already taken steps to mitigate the destruction an interstellar boulder like it will deliver.These steps concerned hiring Dante Lauretta, 54, a planetary science and cosmochemistry professor on the College of Arizona, to move up a mission to analysis, chart and even pattern 101955 Bennu.The asteroid’s preliminary affect would end in a crater the dimensions of Liverpool, and an earthquake clocking in at 6.7 on the Richter scaleGETTY/NasaIn an excerpt from his e book, “The Asteroid Hunter: a Scientist’s Journey to the Daybreak of our Photo voltaic System”, Lauretta detailed what the chance to life on Earth may seem like if house companies around the globe did not take cheap precaution.He mentioned: “If it hits Earth, its path will blaze by means of the ambiance many instances brighter than the noon solar. The affect will launch a blast of vitality equal to 1,450 megatons of TNT.”The professor mentioned that such a launch of vitality would make the mixed historic payload of all humanity’s nuclear testing – a paltry 510 megatons – pale compared.The asteroid’s preliminary affect would end in a mile-deep crater the dimensions of Liverpool, and an earthquake clocking in at 6.7 on the Richter scale – the dimensions of the 1994 Northridge quake which injured hundreds and price billions of {dollars} to wash up.READ MORE SPACE NEWS:Prof Lauretta (pictured) warned of the apocalyptic scenes a collision would heraldGETTY/Wikimedia CommonsProf Lauretta mentioned: “The sound wave can be louder than an orchestra of air-raid sirens, blaring from each path.”Curious onlookers who flocked to their home windows to view the fireball can be greeted with a barrage of fragments because the glass imploded.”Residential properties can be flattened, the few survivors decided by location and random luck. “Workplace buildings and freeway bridges would twist, distort, and finally collapse. Timber can be blown down; those who in some way managed to stay upright can be stripped of their branches and leaves.”The OSIRIS-REx mission returned a pattern of Bennu in 2023NasaGiven the asteroid would, as Prof Lauretta says, be “a serious pure and humanitarian catastrophe” yielding a “staggering” loss of life toll, Nasa launched the OSIRIS-REx mission to check it – even taking a pattern from the rock, returning it to Earth’s floor for testing in September final yr.Nasa mentioned the mission “will assist scientists examine how planets fashioned and the way life started, in addition to enhance our understanding of asteroids that might affect Earth”.And OSIRIS-REx is not the one Nasa mission to make contact with a celestial physique – the house company can also be creating cutting-edge know-how for ‘planetary defence’, with 2022’s Dart mission marking their first try to maneuver an asteroid in house.Each missions might be essential in staving off the specter of an asteroid affect – even when we could also be lengthy gone by the point 101955 Bennu touches down.