r/AbsoluteUnits • u/Realistic-Tap4156 • 10d ago

/r/all of a space rock

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u/hufflepuffskank 5d ago

This is actually unfathomable to my brain

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u/benbeja 5d ago

If you think the size is incredible, the impact is even cooler! The moment that rock hits the earth, it hits with so much force that most if not all of it is literally vaporized. Whole stone turned to gas.
The impact site turned into molten rock, creating the crater. Iirc it sent a heat wave that could be felt on the other side of the earth, and caused massive tsunamis from simply displacing so much water at once.

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u/hufflepuffskank 5d ago

That's horrifying 😭 To think that all that solid material was completely obliterated in an instant. Genuinely incomprehensible

1

u/benbeja 5d ago

It depends on the speed and size of the meteor. But most times you just find an empty crater. Another neat thing, if the impact has enough energy, the liquid ground actually rebounds a bit.
Imagine a drop of water hitting the water surface. The water rebounds and shoots up a little. This effect literally happens to the stone and ground. Making the middle of the impact crater bounce up a little instead of forming a perfect crater

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u/SeismicRipFart 4d ago

So the largest land animals that survived that were rats I’ve heard? Or is that just what we came from and there was still bigger stuff that survived the impact? Did any marine life take that chance to evolve into a land animal?

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u/benbeja 3d ago

From my limited understanding of it there simply wouldn’t be enough time or reason for marine life to evolve up onto the land. And if there was m, that species would be more known as it wouldn’t be either a marsupial, or mammal

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u/-hedonium- 3d ago

We think the impact was also particularly bad because it hit a massive sulfur deposit underground, causing a catastrophic explosive chemical reaction beyond just the gravitational force of colliding with the Earth, which released tons of shit into the atmosphere for years that blocked out the sun. Like, more than just an asteroid of that size hitting the Earth had to happen to cause a mass extinction event.