Calculated by the lab
- Unchanged Earth baseline quantities
☄️ Asteroid impact
Stage an inbound object, contact flash, shock ring, and crater at Chicxulub.
The staged impact is illustrated; its energy and climate aftermath are not computed.
Building the laboratory: star, orbit, planet, atmosphere...
What actually happens
The Chicxulub impactor was roughly 10 kilometers across and triggered effects from the impact site to the global climate. Its consequences depended on impact energy, angle, target rock, ejecta, aerosols, and the atmosphere.
This lab effect aims at the Chicxulub location, draws an inbound streak and contact flash, expands a great-circle shock ring, then leaves a crater marker. The staged graphics use a wall-clock teaching sequence independent of the Time speed and Play/Pause controls. The scenario does not contain impactor size, speed, angle, material, or an energy calculation.
There is no impact-winter calculation. Dust does not reduce the model's incoming sunlight, and the temperature and greenhouse controls remain at their Earth values unless the visitor changes them separately.
How the simulation unfolds
Each step is labeled so you can tell a calculated result from an explanatory visual or wider scientific context.
- Changed input
Start from Earth at Chicxulub
The visual effect uses an Earth baseline and the Chicxulub location as its preset origin.
- Computed
Earth's climate stays unchanged
The ordinary Earth outputs remain available because no impact-energy or aerosol input enters the physics model.
- Illustrated
Arrival, contact, shock, and crater appear
An inbound streak, flash, great-circle ring, and persistent crater run on a readable wall-clock sequence independent of the teaching clock's speed and pause controls.
- Scientific context
Real impacts couple many systems
Shock, ejecta, fire, aerosols, and climate response require energy, geology, and atmospheric models.
What is computed, illustrated, and not modeled
Shown to explain the result
- Inbound object and impact flash
- Expanding great-circle shock ring
- Crater marker until reset
Outside this model
- Impactor trajectory and energy
- Ejecta, fire, and damage
- Dust loading and impact winter
Model scope: The effect is not an impact calculator. Its wall-clock timing is explanatory, not physical impact time, and it does not derive crater size, shock speed, damage, or temperature change.