Technologies

This Is What Might Happen if an Asteroid Crashed Into Your Town

An online simulator lets you launch an asteroid at a locale of your choosing and ponder the potential outcome.

If an asteroid made of pure gold, with a diameter of 2,600 feet and blasting at 77,000 miles per hour, came in at an angle of 48 degrees and hit New York City’s Upper East Side, aka around where I live, I unfortunately now know what would happen.

Myself and 6,363,353 people would be vaporized within the space rock’s resulting crater, a massive chasm over half a mile deep. The shard would release more energy than the last volcanic eruption of Yellowstone, a colossal disaster that, thousands of years ago, spewed ash, magma and debris far enough to cover most of the continental United States.

Or at least that’s what I learned from an asteroid simulation website this afternoon while sipping on a cup of coffee.

The Asteroid Launcher is a free, data-driven concept created by Neal Agarwal, a developer widely known by his online persona: neal.fun. Agarwal’s goal is basically to blend immense arrays of data and interesting mental dilemmas to form clever, interactive online thought experiments, like this one that tells you what kind of devastation would follow an asteroid smashing into your town.

«The main inspiration,» Agarwal told me over email, «was definitely growing up watching movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon! I’ve always wanted to have an online tool that would let me test out different impact scenarios and see the effects.»

But of course, the key here with Asteroid Launcher lies in Agarwal’s pseudonym.

There are thankfully no known significant impact threats for the next hundred years or more, according to NASA — and, worst case, the agency is well on its way toward generating a sort of asteroid defense system with the resounding success of its DART mission, which took place earlier this year.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to cater to our intrusive thoughts once in a while. Just for fun.

Peruse Agarwal’s projects and you’ll find an awesome array of rabbit holes to get lost in.

The Size of Space progressively presents you with larger and larger objects, starting with an astronaut and making its way through stars so enormous they make our sun look like a feeble yellow pom-pom. Spend Bill Gates’ Money offers you $100 billion to spend on items ranging from a 12 pack of Coca-Cola all the way to a literal Boeing 747 commercial airplane. It shows you how much money multibillionaires are working with day to day.

And my personal favorite, Absurd Trolley Problems takes you on an illustrative, ethical journey based on English philosopher Philippa Foot’s fictional scenario where an onlooker has the choice to save five people in danger of being hit by a trolley — except the only way to save them is by killing one person in their stead. The hard part about this isn’t so much the decisions, but the fact that you should, hypothetically, remain consistent in every one of those decisions.

«I’ve kept a big ideas list since I was 16, and have recently passed 1,000 project ideas written down (most of them terrible),» Agarwal said. «The ideas can come from everywhere, from books and movies to a conversation with a friend. I think the important thing is writing them down and being as open as possible to new and weird ideas. Sometimes two to three bad ideas can combine and form a great project.»

Which brings us to Agarwal’s latest endeavor: Asteroid Launcher.

You begin by designing your own asteroid, entering a material, rock diameter, speed and impact angle. Then, you can select any location on a realistic map to the left of the screen. All that remains, at that point, is to click a giant button that says LAUNCH ASTEROID.

Boom.

You arrive at a page that tells you, theoretically, what you’ve just done to your location of choice.

These results are surprisingly detailed, as Agarwal embedded his code with asteroid information gleaned from academic science publications, such as a doctoral thesis about asteroid impact risk and a peer-reviewed population vulnerability model authored by experts from NASA, Lancaster University and the University of Southampton.

However, it does appear that some question the results of Asteroid Launcher — one scientist, for instance, tweeted his preference for the more old-school Earth Impact Effects Program to satisfy doomsday cravings.

Though, to that end, Agarwal says the Earth Impact Effects Program uses the same equations as Asteroid Launcher because both are based on a research paper written by Gareth Collins, an asteroid impact expert at Imperial College London. «They’ll give pretty much the same results,» he explained, noting that Clemens Rumpf, an asteroid risk expert who formerly worked at NASA, also contributed to his project.

«The goal of neal.fun is to bring back the weird and fun internet!» Agarwal said. «I grew up at a time when the internet was full of strange and fun flash games and experiments, and watched that all slowly go away as social media took over. Now the web is finally becoming powerful enough again to create fun digital experiences, and I’m excited to keep exploring the potential with new projects.»

On Asteroid Launcher, once you’ve pressed the big red button, scroll down a little, and you’ll catch far more than fatalities spurred by your asteroid design.

Agarwal tells you how many gigatons of TNT your explosion equaled, how many people would receive second-degree burns if your asteroid was closer to a huge fireball, the radius within which peoples’ eardrums would rupture from the shock wave and within which homes would be completely leveled from wind speeds upon impact.

It’s darkly obsessive to check out as many asteroid designs as you can. Immediately after making my dream gold impactor, I plugged in the stats of the asteroid that NASA’s DART spacecraft punched into in an attempt to change the relatively small space rock’s orbit around a larger hunk of space rock.

I couldn’t get things to be completely accurate, because this is so theoretical, but here’s what I came up with.

Dimorphos is considered to be made of «rubble,» aka a bunch of materials, so for material, I went with generic stone. It’s actually about 525 feet in diameter, but Asteroid Launcher requires some rounding. I put in 500 feet. As for speed at time of impact, a parameter we don’t know, I popped in the speed at which the DART spacecraft hit the rock, because, well, why not? That came out to something like 14,400 miles per hour, which had to be rounded as well. I set the location to London and angle to 90 degrees for no reason whatsoever.

Here’s what we got for results — they’re much less shocking than my first ridiculous, gleaming monster asteroid.

My next plan was to input the parameters of the dinosaur-killer asteroid, Chicxulub. But get this: It was so gigantic it didn’t even fit in the diameter section.

«Asteroid impact science is still an evolving field and not everything is known yet,» Agarwal said. «Generally the larger the asteroid, the more uncertain we are about the effects.»

Technologies

Pluto TV to Stream 49 ‘Survivor’ Seasons for Free

The 50th season of the competition series is set to air on CBS in February.

Pluto TV might help you plan your next reality TV binge. All 49 seasons of the competition series Survivor will stream on demand on the service later this month.

The Survivor catalog will arrive ahead of the landmark 50th season of Survivor, which airs on CBS on Feb. 25. You can currently watch the previous 49 seasons with a Paramount Plus subscription, which starts at $8 per month (or $9 after a price hike on Jan. 15). Pluto’s route is free, but it comes with ads.

There will be two ways to watch: Pluto’s dedicated 24/7 Survivor channel, which will stream episodes in chronological order, or you can stream episodes on demand.

The channel marathon and on-demand availability begin on Jan. 24 at 5:15 p.m. ET.

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For more information on Pluto and other free, ad-supported streaming services, check out our roundup of the best options.

Technologies

Apple Picks Google Gemini to Power Siri

Sorry OpenAI, Apple went back to its old lover.

Apple has chosen Google’s Gemini to power its next iteration of Siri, coming later this year, both companies said in a joint statement on Monday.

Apple and Google’s Siri deal follows months of rumors saying that the iPhone maker had chosen Gemini to advance Siri over OpenAI’s ChatGPT. A report in November said that Apple would pay Google $1 billion per year for Google’s AI prowess. It helps that last November’s release of Gemini 3 made a huge impact and reportedly put OpenAI in a «code red» position.

«After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users,» according to the statement on Monday. «Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple’s industry-leading privacy standards.»

Google referred to the joint statement when asked for comment. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Despite Apple being one of the most valuable companies in the world, it’s behind in the AI race. Instead of developing its own foundational models, which reports suggested hadn’t been going well, Apple instead worked with OpenAI to power Apple Intelligence. Even with the Siri refresh under Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI assistant fell short of expectations, although subsequently it’s proving to be more useful.

Apple’s deal with Google further marries two American tech giants who had already been exchanging billions of dollars. During the Department of Justice antitrust trial against Google, court documents showed that Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to ensure that Google Search would remain the default search engine across Apple devices. Now, some of that money will be flowing back to Google so that Siri can get a much-needed leveling up.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Technologies

Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold Is a Phone-Tablet Hybrid With a Clear Purpose

I got my hands on the new foldable at CES. It feels like a wildly practical two-in-one device, thanks to the massive display and overall sleek build.

I’ve tested my fair share of thin and foldable phones over the years, but something about Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold struck me as particularly unique when I held it for the first time at CES 2026 in Las Vegas.

At last, it seems foldables are approaching their long-desired goal: a two-in-one device that fits neatly in your pocket.

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The Galaxy Z TriFold — which technically folds twice but has three panels — is like a true phone-tablet hybrid that stands apart from its bar-style counterparts. Its value lies less in flashy specs about its thinness and more in its utility and practicality.

Yes, the Galaxy Z TriFold feels impressively sleek when open: It’s just 3.9mm at its thinnest point and 4.2mm at its thickest, not accounting for the camera bump. It also feels wonderfully normal in my hands, to the degree that I didn’t really think about its weight of 309 grams as I used it.

Still, the foldable doesn’t inspire the same ergonomic awe as Samsung’s book-style Galaxy Z Fold 7 or the bar-style Galaxy S25 Edge, which primarily lean on an ultrathin, lightweight design.

The Galaxy Z TriFold is all about getting things done on a portable scale. Need to shoot off a quick text or check an email? The 6.5-inch cover display is similar to using a nonfolding phone — minus the slightly chunky 12.9mm thickness when the trifold is closed. And when it’s time to watch a movie, multitask or type up a paper, the expansive 10-inch internal display offers plenty of real estate.

Read more: The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold was selected as a winner in the Best Mobile Tech category for the Official Best of CES 2026 Awards.

That duality makes the Galaxy Z TriFold work like a true hybrid device, filling a niche that book-style foldables have yet to satisfy, despite their numerous efforts.

Comparing the Z TriFold and the Z Fold 7 at a glance

Placing Samsung’s Z TriFold and its two-panel Galaxy Z Fold 7 side by side underscored just how different each phone is.

Yes, you can watch videos at a larger scale on the Z Fold 7’s inside display, but that experience pales in comparison to the true tablet-like feel of the unfurled Z TriFold. You can open up to three apps simultaneously on both phones, but doing so on the trifold feels like a less significant compromise thanks to its larger screen. And with Samsung DeX, turning your phone into a mini computer of sorts has never felt more practical, since there’s more room to work with.

One of the biggest indicators of how far foldables have come is the fact that both the Z TriFold and the Z Fold 7 pack pretty impressive cameras: a 200-megapixel wide, 12-megapixel ultrawide and 10-megapixel telephoto camera on the back, along with two 10-megapixel selfie cameras. So if you’re choosing between the larger and smaller Samsung foldables, that’s one key factor they have in common.

Two hinges on the trifold means double the screen creases, but they’re thankfully less visible than the Z Fold 7’s, which is already pretty subdued. Learning how to close the trifold correctly can be a bit of a learning curve, especially if you’re right-handed like me; you’ll need to close the left panel first. But each time you (I) mess up, the phone gives haptic feedback and an alert that you (we) are doing it wrong, which is helpful.

What’s perhaps most assuring is the trifold’s 5,600-mAh battery, which can hopefully allow the phone to power through a full day’s use, and then some. The Z Fold 7 has a 4,400-mAh battery, which lasted all day in my initial testing, but without much juice to spare. Hopefully, the Z TriFold remedies that. The trifold’s 45-watt super-fast charging is a nice perk, too.

Speaking of charging: Samsung told me the Z TriFold will come with not just a charging cable in the box, but also a charging brick. Nature is healing.

US release and price

The Z TriFold is already available in Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, my colleague Prakhar Khanna beat me to the punch and got his hands on the phone in Dubai last month.

Samsung has said the Z TriFold will launch in the US in the first quarter of this year. It’ll be interesting to see if people in the US respond similarly to those in other countries like Korea, where the phone reportedly sold out in minutes.

Another looming question remains: the price. Samsung didn’t share the US price at CES, but we’ll likely learn more as we approach the (also unknown) release date. Given the Z Fold 7’s $2,000 price tag, though, you might want to start saving up now.