Earth Impact Effects Program

Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins

Please note: the results below are estimates based on current (limited) understanding of the impact process and come with large uncertainties; they should be used with caution, particularly in the case of peculiar input parameters. All values are given to three significant figures but this does not reflect the precision of the estimate. For more information about the uncertainty associated with our calculations and a full discussion of this program, please refer to this article

Your Inputs:

Distance from Impact: 10.00 km ( = 6.21 miles )
Projectile diameter: 35.00 km ( = 21.70 miles )
Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 72.00 km per second ( = 44.70 miles per second ) (Your chosen velocity is higher than the maximum for an object orbiting the sun)
Impact Angle: 90 degrees
Target Density: 3000 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock

Energy:

Energy before atmospheric entry: 4.66 x 1026 Joules = 1.11 x 1011 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size is longer than the Earth's age.
Such impacts could only occur during the accumulation of the Earth, between 4.5 and 4 billion years ago.

Major Global Changes:

The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the tilt of Earth's axis (< 5 hundreths of a degree).
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.

Crater Dimensions:

What does this mean?


Transient Crater Diameter: 468 km ( = 291 miles )
Transient Crater Depth: 166 km ( = 103 miles )

Final Crater Diameter: 1050 km ( = 650 miles )
Final Crater Depth: 2.4 km ( = 1.49 miles )
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 4.14e+06 km3 = 994000 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater, where its average thickness is 24.1 km ( = 14.9 miles ).

Ejecta:

What does this mean?


Your position was inside the transient crater and ejected upon impact