These are the asteroids to worry about

Special thanks to:
Prof. Dave Jewitt from UCLA Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences
Prof. Mark Boslough from Sandia National Labs
Ryan Wyatt at Morrison Planetarium
Prof. Amy Mainzer
Alexandr Ivanov for the opening shot of Chelyabinsk Meteor

Belskaya, I. N., & Shevchenko, V. G. (2000). Opposition effect of asteroids. Icarus, 147(1), 94-105.

Perna, D., Barucci, M. A., & Fulchignoni, M. (2013). The near-Earth objects and their potential threat to our planet. The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, 21(1), 65.

Rumpf, C. M., Lewis, H. G., & Atkinson, P. M. (2017). Population vulnerability models for asteroid impact risk assessment. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 52(6), 1082-1102.

Trilling, D. E., Valdes, F., Allen, L., James, D., Fuentes, C., Herrera, D., ... & Rajagopal, J. (2017). The size distribution of near-earth objects larger than 10 m. The Astronomical Journal, 154(4), 170.

Board, S. S., & National Research Council. (2010). Defending planet earth: Near-Earth-Object surveys and hazard mitigation strategies. National Academies Press.

Schweickart, R. L., Lu, E. T., Hut, P., & Chapman, C. R. (2003). The asteroid tugboat. Scientific American, 289(5), 54-61.

Lu, E. T., & Love, S. G. (2005). Gravitational tractor for towing asteroids. Nature, 438(7065), 177-178.

Thiry, N., & Vasile, M. (2014). Recent advances in laser ablation modelling for asteroid deflection methods. SPIE Optical Engineering+ Applications, 922608-922608.

Ahrens, T. J., & Harris, A. W. (1992). Deflection and fragmentation of near-Earth asteroids. Nature, 360(6403), 429-433.

Bradley, P. A., Plesko, C. S., Clement, R. R., Conlon, L. M., Weaver, R. P., Guzik, J. A., ... & Huebner, W. F. (2010, January). Challenges of deflecting an asteroid or comet nucleus with a nuclear burst. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1208, No. 1, pp. 430-437). American Institute of Physics.

Researched and Written by Petr Lebedev, Jonny Hyman and Derek Muller
3D animations, VFX, SFX, Audio Mixing by Jonny Hyman
2D animation by Ivy Tello
Intro animation by Nicolas Pratt
With Filming by Raquel Nuno

Images and video supplied by Getty Images

[cocopuffs]

Wow it sure helps my anxiety to know that earth is basically standing in the middle of a dodgeball game and everything that I have ever known is at the mercy of a funny rock

[MonkeyGoatLicker]

Fun Fact:
If it wasn’t for Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, the Earth would get hit all the time with asteroids. Jupiter’s rich gravity ALMOST always takes the blows.

[DrKoneko]

I've been to the crater in Arizona and there's no way to convey how huge the crater is without seeing it in person. It's beautiful and haunting.

[jbrethous]

Derek, you are fantastic at what you do. You are among the top information sources, not on Youtube but in the whole of Internet. Respect to what and how you do it. Thank you.

[karmakast]

"Let me set your mind at ease"
"Here's all the other ways you could die".
Thanks, my mind is so at ease now.

[tannoy]

With NASA's DART mission, I am glad we're making progress.

[Nathan-vtjz]

The DART experiment has shown that we do have the ability to deflect a asteroid with a high velocity impact. I know that happened after this video was made. It was an important experiment and a fun one to see live.

[kellycat]

"And if we saw one coming, what would we do about it?"
Me:

"Become cameramen."

[iammrbeat]

THIS WAS SO GOOD. I mean, now I'm freaking out, but the video was so good.

[danielbowman]

I love this dudes energy, just chillin at his house with no shoes on talking about stuff he presumably loves

[imetzl]

To quote Truman from the movie Armageddon,
President: "And we dudnt see this coming?"
NASA: "Well our object collision budget allows us to cover about 3% of the sky, and I beg your pardon sir but it's a big ass sky".

[trollster]

“If you are scared of a meteor impact then this will put you at ease, *you can die a thousand more painful ways* “

[arileblance]

My movie research says that Europe wouldnt be affected anyway, since everything happens in America

[Zsy]

You've gotta give Barringer some credit for sticking with his mining operation.

[EastCoastShorts]

Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.

[deponentfutures]

Veritasium's videos now have better production than most documentaries i watched as a kid (and are more informative)!

[warrior]

Hats off to the cameraman who filmed all this space stuff for us.

[JoshuahMyles]

Most people: Jupiter saves us most the time.

Asteroids coming from the opposite side: 🤓

[paulrandig]

I start to think that evacuating a city can be done quickest if you let the people walk. You close all roads exept for transport of those who can't walk. In a week's time, you could reach another big city walking. If people flee in all directions, the masses thin out. So, if you have many evacuation centers all around the city in a distance of a five days walk, you can transport the people from there.

[seya_]

That scientist dude is definition of being cool and a nerd at the same time