Second Impact

If the asteroid Ceres (mass ≈ 9.4 × 10²⁰ kg, average impact velocity ≈ 20 km/s) were to collide with Earth, the energy released would be calculated using the kinetic energy formula: E = ½mv².

Substituting the values gives E = 0.5 × 9.4 × 10²⁰ kg × (20,000 m/s)², resulting in approximately 1.88 × 10²⁹ joules.

This equals about 45 billion megatons of TNT, making it over a million times more powerful than the Chicxulub impact that ended the dinosaurs.

Such an event would be globally catastrophic, vaporizing the impact site, triggering massive seismic waves, global firestorms, and long-term atmospheric disruption.