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The explanation for why it didn't leave a crater is pretty unsatisfying.

I was expecting something about the flat shape and how it might have skipped over the atmosphere and/or induced a lot of drag.

I did search a bit but didn't find an article that had both a plausible explanation and some credible source.




There was a crater. Mayne not a giant, but one of some sort. If the soil was soft enough, deep enough, that crater could have eroded away long ago. The rock may also have moved from where it landed to where it is now. So it has, today, not "left" us a crater.


The article also says it was covered... so perhaps the crater filled in by erosion this covering it or it was deliberately filled in by ancient farmers.

Edit: grammar.


I agree. Perhaps shape plus angle of fall and there could have been a thick forest in that place or maybe a lake.


FWIW, humans have survived falls from aircraft without a parachute, due to the last two reasons. Recalling some of the accounts, it helps a lot if you happen to hit on the downslope of a forested hill with just the right slope.


Those things matter at human terminal velocity (not much mind you) but not at asteroid terminal velocity. Asteroids hit with so much speed that the kinetic energy of impact mostly overcomes the binding energy between molecules and even atoms and the impactor largely vaporizes. This is more true for comets which are looser collections of ice and rock, and more true for larger impactors.


Impactors like that have not slowed to their terminal velocity. They either are small enough to be slowed by the atmosphere, bigger and explode in the atmosphere, bigger still and they race all the way the ground.


you're right


Completely off topic, but it really pisses me off that stuff like this gets covered uncritically:

https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/02/08/meteorite-kil...




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