Approximate size of crater will be fine! The object is the size of a car. I don't know the angle it would hit the earth.
What size crater would be made if an object weighing 3 tonnes fell from space at 700 miles an hour?
- Posted:
- 3+ months ago by Ann Onymous
- Topics:
- space, earth, crater, object
Details:
Answers (1)
There are a lot of variables in calculating the size of a crater, you are right the angle is important but also the density (not the weight of the meteorite), the material that is being impacted (sand, mud, soft rock, hard rock and their relevant densities).
If you want a ballpark figure for a very dense metal meteorite (1 m wide) striking hard rock at 90 degrees (perpendicular - which is unlikely) at 700 miles per hour (0.3129 km per second - which is quite slow) then the crater would be;
1.658 m wide and 0.414 m deep, this is small because the meteorite is moving so slowly.
If the same meteorite was going faster (more realistically 7 km s) then the crater would be;
10.701 m wide and 2.675 m deep (the ejecta would be thrown in a circle 20.5 m wide).