Still, that baby's cruising at a cool 31,000 MPH. That speed, combined with The Beast's massiveness, would lead to some serious devastation if it made contact. Asteroid impact expert Mark Boslough, of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, said during a Slooh Community Observatory webcast, "this one would definitely be catastrophic if it hit the Earth. If it hit a city, it would definitely wipe out an entire metropolitan area."
Boslough estimated The Beast's impact would pack the power of a 2,000-megaton explosion—for reference, that's more than 100,000 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima. Thankfully, if The Beast was actually destined for impact, we would know by now: the asteroid was detected on April 23rd, and once such a body has been found, scientists can predict its path with unbelievable accuracy.
"Once it's within radar distance, the precision is remarkably good on its position and speed," Boslough said. "So the folks at JPL would be able to predict its impact point to within the nearest kilometer and its time to within the nearest second."
source: gizmodo.com by Robert Sorokanich