Could a ~150 mile impact basin form from a small object imact?












2














Could a ~150 mile (240 kilometers) crater form from a small object impact?



So the object impacting the site of the crater is a human shape and not able to be destroyed. The location of the impact is in an ocean which is on average 1000 feet (304 meters) deep with the ocean floor made of mostly granite. The atmosphere is also similar to earths. The gravity is half that of earth.



New info



The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps.










share|improve this question




















  • 6




    Wait... The impact location is the ocean, but you want a 150 mile impact basin? At the bottom of the ocean? The impact velocity would probably vaporize most of the ocean (after igniting the atmosphere), killing everything on the planet. Did I understand that correctly?
    – JBH
    yesterday






  • 2




    I scratch my head for a science based question involving an indestructible bullet...
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 1




    Yes you understand correctly. But at this point there wouldn't be life at all. The story is a deity of sorts falls into the planet at an extremely high speed and the impact creates the only land on the planet.
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • "The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps." It does not help. With the conditions you provided there is very little difference whether it is human-sized or 18-wheeler sized, and whether it is made of uranium or unobtanium.
    – Renan
    yesterday










  • Not possible - comparable craters are usually caused by objects the diameter of a fairly large city. Such a tiny object must be either laughably dense or traveling laughably fast. Example: A super-dense deity will punch entirely through the granite, drift down to the center of the Earth, and live out eternity there (bit dull) .
    – user535733
    yesterday


















2














Could a ~150 mile (240 kilometers) crater form from a small object impact?



So the object impacting the site of the crater is a human shape and not able to be destroyed. The location of the impact is in an ocean which is on average 1000 feet (304 meters) deep with the ocean floor made of mostly granite. The atmosphere is also similar to earths. The gravity is half that of earth.



New info



The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps.










share|improve this question




















  • 6




    Wait... The impact location is the ocean, but you want a 150 mile impact basin? At the bottom of the ocean? The impact velocity would probably vaporize most of the ocean (after igniting the atmosphere), killing everything on the planet. Did I understand that correctly?
    – JBH
    yesterday






  • 2




    I scratch my head for a science based question involving an indestructible bullet...
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 1




    Yes you understand correctly. But at this point there wouldn't be life at all. The story is a deity of sorts falls into the planet at an extremely high speed and the impact creates the only land on the planet.
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • "The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps." It does not help. With the conditions you provided there is very little difference whether it is human-sized or 18-wheeler sized, and whether it is made of uranium or unobtanium.
    – Renan
    yesterday










  • Not possible - comparable craters are usually caused by objects the diameter of a fairly large city. Such a tiny object must be either laughably dense or traveling laughably fast. Example: A super-dense deity will punch entirely through the granite, drift down to the center of the Earth, and live out eternity there (bit dull) .
    – user535733
    yesterday
















2












2








2







Could a ~150 mile (240 kilometers) crater form from a small object impact?



So the object impacting the site of the crater is a human shape and not able to be destroyed. The location of the impact is in an ocean which is on average 1000 feet (304 meters) deep with the ocean floor made of mostly granite. The atmosphere is also similar to earths. The gravity is half that of earth.



New info



The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps.










share|improve this question















Could a ~150 mile (240 kilometers) crater form from a small object impact?



So the object impacting the site of the crater is a human shape and not able to be destroyed. The location of the impact is in an ocean which is on average 1000 feet (304 meters) deep with the ocean floor made of mostly granite. The atmosphere is also similar to earths. The gravity is half that of earth.



New info



The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps.







science-based asteroids cataclysms






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited yesterday









Renan

44.1k11100224




44.1k11100224










asked yesterday









SlothsAndMeSlothsAndMe

585




585








  • 6




    Wait... The impact location is the ocean, but you want a 150 mile impact basin? At the bottom of the ocean? The impact velocity would probably vaporize most of the ocean (after igniting the atmosphere), killing everything on the planet. Did I understand that correctly?
    – JBH
    yesterday






  • 2




    I scratch my head for a science based question involving an indestructible bullet...
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 1




    Yes you understand correctly. But at this point there wouldn't be life at all. The story is a deity of sorts falls into the planet at an extremely high speed and the impact creates the only land on the planet.
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • "The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps." It does not help. With the conditions you provided there is very little difference whether it is human-sized or 18-wheeler sized, and whether it is made of uranium or unobtanium.
    – Renan
    yesterday










  • Not possible - comparable craters are usually caused by objects the diameter of a fairly large city. Such a tiny object must be either laughably dense or traveling laughably fast. Example: A super-dense deity will punch entirely through the granite, drift down to the center of the Earth, and live out eternity there (bit dull) .
    – user535733
    yesterday
















  • 6




    Wait... The impact location is the ocean, but you want a 150 mile impact basin? At the bottom of the ocean? The impact velocity would probably vaporize most of the ocean (after igniting the atmosphere), killing everything on the planet. Did I understand that correctly?
    – JBH
    yesterday






  • 2




    I scratch my head for a science based question involving an indestructible bullet...
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 1




    Yes you understand correctly. But at this point there wouldn't be life at all. The story is a deity of sorts falls into the planet at an extremely high speed and the impact creates the only land on the planet.
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • "The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps." It does not help. With the conditions you provided there is very little difference whether it is human-sized or 18-wheeler sized, and whether it is made of uranium or unobtanium.
    – Renan
    yesterday










  • Not possible - comparable craters are usually caused by objects the diameter of a fairly large city. Such a tiny object must be either laughably dense or traveling laughably fast. Example: A super-dense deity will punch entirely through the granite, drift down to the center of the Earth, and live out eternity there (bit dull) .
    – user535733
    yesterday










6




6




Wait... The impact location is the ocean, but you want a 150 mile impact basin? At the bottom of the ocean? The impact velocity would probably vaporize most of the ocean (after igniting the atmosphere), killing everything on the planet. Did I understand that correctly?
– JBH
yesterday




Wait... The impact location is the ocean, but you want a 150 mile impact basin? At the bottom of the ocean? The impact velocity would probably vaporize most of the ocean (after igniting the atmosphere), killing everything on the planet. Did I understand that correctly?
– JBH
yesterday




2




2




I scratch my head for a science based question involving an indestructible bullet...
– L.Dutch
yesterday




I scratch my head for a science based question involving an indestructible bullet...
– L.Dutch
yesterday




1




1




Yes you understand correctly. But at this point there wouldn't be life at all. The story is a deity of sorts falls into the planet at an extremely high speed and the impact creates the only land on the planet.
– SlothsAndMe
yesterday




Yes you understand correctly. But at this point there wouldn't be life at all. The story is a deity of sorts falls into the planet at an extremely high speed and the impact creates the only land on the planet.
– SlothsAndMe
yesterday












"The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps." It does not help. With the conditions you provided there is very little difference whether it is human-sized or 18-wheeler sized, and whether it is made of uranium or unobtanium.
– Renan
yesterday




"The impactor can be as dense as you like and go from a human foot sized object to a refrigerator if that helps." It does not help. With the conditions you provided there is very little difference whether it is human-sized or 18-wheeler sized, and whether it is made of uranium or unobtanium.
– Renan
yesterday












Not possible - comparable craters are usually caused by objects the diameter of a fairly large city. Such a tiny object must be either laughably dense or traveling laughably fast. Example: A super-dense deity will punch entirely through the granite, drift down to the center of the Earth, and live out eternity there (bit dull) .
– user535733
yesterday






Not possible - comparable craters are usually caused by objects the diameter of a fairly large city. Such a tiny object must be either laughably dense or traveling laughably fast. Example: A super-dense deity will punch entirely through the granite, drift down to the center of the Earth, and live out eternity there (bit dull) .
– user535733
yesterday












2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes


















0














The Chicxulub impactor is roughly 6.8-50.3 miles in diameter and in this event it released $5.8 cdot 10^{25} J$ of energy.



To figure out how fast a body would have to travel to impart that energy the equation is $E=(1/2)mv^2$.



Assuming average mans body ~80kg (ASSUMING) we get a velocity of $~1.2 cdot 10^{12} m/s$ which is about 4000 times the speed of light.



To scale that out to 150 mile wide crater would be far beyond anything even worth mentioning. Now if this god being were super massively dense, maybe the math would work out.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.














  • 6




    It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 3




    Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday






  • 3




    For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday










  • So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • @SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
    – Luaan
    yesterday



















8














I used Down2Earth's impact calculator to try and find out what it would take to get what you want.



The only parameter I could get even close to what you want was the target site: the bed of a 300m deep water body, on an Earth-like planet. I used the densest projectile and the smallest available size: a 100m wide piece of iron. The angle with the widest crater is that of a head-on crash.



This is not going to end well



This is what we get:



Told ya



If instead of Iron we used uranium, or even osmium (the densest element), we would get approximately thrice the energy on the impact. The crater would still be one or two orders of magnitude smaller than what you want. But that's with the 100m wide impactor.



As you can see, for even an osmium man-sized projectile to give you the juice you need, it will need to impact at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. It will open a hole in whatever tectonic plate it hits, besides melting most of the crust around the impact, triggering a new Hadean era. If the planet has an atmosphere, it will evaporate into space. Gasified rocks will form a new, venusian atmosphere that may last a billion years. The debris from the impact will form a new Moon; the planet will have its mass reduced due to losing that debris to form the Moon, so the planet will have a smaller gravity after the impact. Also, its orbit will probably change excentricity around the sun.



If the solar system is already depleted of icy bodies (i.e.: comets) going around the orbit of that planet, it will never get enough water to develop life again. Otherwise give it a billion years for the crust to cool off and the atmosphere to renew itself, and maybe some microbial life will appear. Billions of years later, any intelligent life will never be able to tell that the impact happened.






share|improve this answer



















  • 1




    maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
    – Jasen
    yesterday






  • 2




    (+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday










  • @Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
    – Luaan
    yesterday










  • @Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday













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2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes








2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









0














The Chicxulub impactor is roughly 6.8-50.3 miles in diameter and in this event it released $5.8 cdot 10^{25} J$ of energy.



To figure out how fast a body would have to travel to impart that energy the equation is $E=(1/2)mv^2$.



Assuming average mans body ~80kg (ASSUMING) we get a velocity of $~1.2 cdot 10^{12} m/s$ which is about 4000 times the speed of light.



To scale that out to 150 mile wide crater would be far beyond anything even worth mentioning. Now if this god being were super massively dense, maybe the math would work out.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.














  • 6




    It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 3




    Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday






  • 3




    For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday










  • So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • @SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
    – Luaan
    yesterday
















0














The Chicxulub impactor is roughly 6.8-50.3 miles in diameter and in this event it released $5.8 cdot 10^{25} J$ of energy.



To figure out how fast a body would have to travel to impart that energy the equation is $E=(1/2)mv^2$.



Assuming average mans body ~80kg (ASSUMING) we get a velocity of $~1.2 cdot 10^{12} m/s$ which is about 4000 times the speed of light.



To scale that out to 150 mile wide crater would be far beyond anything even worth mentioning. Now if this god being were super massively dense, maybe the math would work out.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.














  • 6




    It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 3




    Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday






  • 3




    For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday










  • So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • @SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
    – Luaan
    yesterday














0












0








0






The Chicxulub impactor is roughly 6.8-50.3 miles in diameter and in this event it released $5.8 cdot 10^{25} J$ of energy.



To figure out how fast a body would have to travel to impart that energy the equation is $E=(1/2)mv^2$.



Assuming average mans body ~80kg (ASSUMING) we get a velocity of $~1.2 cdot 10^{12} m/s$ which is about 4000 times the speed of light.



To scale that out to 150 mile wide crater would be far beyond anything even worth mentioning. Now if this god being were super massively dense, maybe the math would work out.






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









The Chicxulub impactor is roughly 6.8-50.3 miles in diameter and in this event it released $5.8 cdot 10^{25} J$ of energy.



To figure out how fast a body would have to travel to impart that energy the equation is $E=(1/2)mv^2$.



Assuming average mans body ~80kg (ASSUMING) we get a velocity of $~1.2 cdot 10^{12} m/s$ which is about 4000 times the speed of light.



To scale that out to 150 mile wide crater would be far beyond anything even worth mentioning. Now if this god being were super massively dense, maybe the math would work out.







share|improve this answer










New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited yesterday









L.Dutch

78.2k26186380




78.2k26186380






New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









answered yesterday









SonvarSonvar

2604




2604




New contributor




Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





New contributor





Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Sonvar is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.








  • 6




    It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 3




    Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday






  • 3




    For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday










  • So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • @SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
    – Luaan
    yesterday














  • 6




    It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
    – L.Dutch
    yesterday






  • 3




    Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday






  • 3




    For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
    – Joe Bloggs
    yesterday










  • So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
    – SlothsAndMe
    yesterday










  • @SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
    – Luaan
    yesterday








6




6




It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
– L.Dutch
yesterday




It would be better if you used the relativistic formula for kinetic energy
– L.Dutch
yesterday




3




3




Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
– Joe Bloggs
yesterday




Gotta agree with @L.Dutch. If using the classical formula gives an answer like that then it’s time to move up a gear.
– Joe Bloggs
yesterday




3




3




For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
– Joe Bloggs
yesterday




For example, a quick estimate using this calculator pegs the required speed at 0.9999999999999 times the speed of light. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still obscene, but at least it’s physically possible!
– Joe Bloggs
yesterday












So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
– SlothsAndMe
yesterday




So what you guys are saying is that it wouldn't be possible?
– SlothsAndMe
yesterday












@SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
– Luaan
yesterday




@SlothsAndMe Not with kinetic energy alone. You can always add some protective shell around the god that explodes on impact if you want to.
– Luaan
yesterday











8














I used Down2Earth's impact calculator to try and find out what it would take to get what you want.



The only parameter I could get even close to what you want was the target site: the bed of a 300m deep water body, on an Earth-like planet. I used the densest projectile and the smallest available size: a 100m wide piece of iron. The angle with the widest crater is that of a head-on crash.



This is not going to end well



This is what we get:



Told ya



If instead of Iron we used uranium, or even osmium (the densest element), we would get approximately thrice the energy on the impact. The crater would still be one or two orders of magnitude smaller than what you want. But that's with the 100m wide impactor.



As you can see, for even an osmium man-sized projectile to give you the juice you need, it will need to impact at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. It will open a hole in whatever tectonic plate it hits, besides melting most of the crust around the impact, triggering a new Hadean era. If the planet has an atmosphere, it will evaporate into space. Gasified rocks will form a new, venusian atmosphere that may last a billion years. The debris from the impact will form a new Moon; the planet will have its mass reduced due to losing that debris to form the Moon, so the planet will have a smaller gravity after the impact. Also, its orbit will probably change excentricity around the sun.



If the solar system is already depleted of icy bodies (i.e.: comets) going around the orbit of that planet, it will never get enough water to develop life again. Otherwise give it a billion years for the crust to cool off and the atmosphere to renew itself, and maybe some microbial life will appear. Billions of years later, any intelligent life will never be able to tell that the impact happened.






share|improve this answer



















  • 1




    maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
    – Jasen
    yesterday






  • 2




    (+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday










  • @Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
    – Luaan
    yesterday










  • @Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday


















8














I used Down2Earth's impact calculator to try and find out what it would take to get what you want.



The only parameter I could get even close to what you want was the target site: the bed of a 300m deep water body, on an Earth-like planet. I used the densest projectile and the smallest available size: a 100m wide piece of iron. The angle with the widest crater is that of a head-on crash.



This is not going to end well



This is what we get:



Told ya



If instead of Iron we used uranium, or even osmium (the densest element), we would get approximately thrice the energy on the impact. The crater would still be one or two orders of magnitude smaller than what you want. But that's with the 100m wide impactor.



As you can see, for even an osmium man-sized projectile to give you the juice you need, it will need to impact at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. It will open a hole in whatever tectonic plate it hits, besides melting most of the crust around the impact, triggering a new Hadean era. If the planet has an atmosphere, it will evaporate into space. Gasified rocks will form a new, venusian atmosphere that may last a billion years. The debris from the impact will form a new Moon; the planet will have its mass reduced due to losing that debris to form the Moon, so the planet will have a smaller gravity after the impact. Also, its orbit will probably change excentricity around the sun.



If the solar system is already depleted of icy bodies (i.e.: comets) going around the orbit of that planet, it will never get enough water to develop life again. Otherwise give it a billion years for the crust to cool off and the atmosphere to renew itself, and maybe some microbial life will appear. Billions of years later, any intelligent life will never be able to tell that the impact happened.






share|improve this answer



















  • 1




    maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
    – Jasen
    yesterday






  • 2




    (+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday










  • @Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
    – Luaan
    yesterday










  • @Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday
















8












8








8






I used Down2Earth's impact calculator to try and find out what it would take to get what you want.



The only parameter I could get even close to what you want was the target site: the bed of a 300m deep water body, on an Earth-like planet. I used the densest projectile and the smallest available size: a 100m wide piece of iron. The angle with the widest crater is that of a head-on crash.



This is not going to end well



This is what we get:



Told ya



If instead of Iron we used uranium, or even osmium (the densest element), we would get approximately thrice the energy on the impact. The crater would still be one or two orders of magnitude smaller than what you want. But that's with the 100m wide impactor.



As you can see, for even an osmium man-sized projectile to give you the juice you need, it will need to impact at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. It will open a hole in whatever tectonic plate it hits, besides melting most of the crust around the impact, triggering a new Hadean era. If the planet has an atmosphere, it will evaporate into space. Gasified rocks will form a new, venusian atmosphere that may last a billion years. The debris from the impact will form a new Moon; the planet will have its mass reduced due to losing that debris to form the Moon, so the planet will have a smaller gravity after the impact. Also, its orbit will probably change excentricity around the sun.



If the solar system is already depleted of icy bodies (i.e.: comets) going around the orbit of that planet, it will never get enough water to develop life again. Otherwise give it a billion years for the crust to cool off and the atmosphere to renew itself, and maybe some microbial life will appear. Billions of years later, any intelligent life will never be able to tell that the impact happened.






share|improve this answer














I used Down2Earth's impact calculator to try and find out what it would take to get what you want.



The only parameter I could get even close to what you want was the target site: the bed of a 300m deep water body, on an Earth-like planet. I used the densest projectile and the smallest available size: a 100m wide piece of iron. The angle with the widest crater is that of a head-on crash.



This is not going to end well



This is what we get:



Told ya



If instead of Iron we used uranium, or even osmium (the densest element), we would get approximately thrice the energy on the impact. The crater would still be one or two orders of magnitude smaller than what you want. But that's with the 100m wide impactor.



As you can see, for even an osmium man-sized projectile to give you the juice you need, it will need to impact at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. It will open a hole in whatever tectonic plate it hits, besides melting most of the crust around the impact, triggering a new Hadean era. If the planet has an atmosphere, it will evaporate into space. Gasified rocks will form a new, venusian atmosphere that may last a billion years. The debris from the impact will form a new Moon; the planet will have its mass reduced due to losing that debris to form the Moon, so the planet will have a smaller gravity after the impact. Also, its orbit will probably change excentricity around the sun.



If the solar system is already depleted of icy bodies (i.e.: comets) going around the orbit of that planet, it will never get enough water to develop life again. Otherwise give it a billion years for the crust to cool off and the atmosphere to renew itself, and maybe some microbial life will appear. Billions of years later, any intelligent life will never be able to tell that the impact happened.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited yesterday

























answered yesterday









RenanRenan

44.1k11100224




44.1k11100224








  • 1




    maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
    – Jasen
    yesterday






  • 2




    (+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday










  • @Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
    – Luaan
    yesterday










  • @Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday
















  • 1




    maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
    – Jasen
    yesterday






  • 2




    (+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday










  • @Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
    – Luaan
    yesterday










  • @Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
    – Rekesoft
    yesterday










1




1




maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
– Jasen
yesterday




maybe try with something denser like neutronium.
– Jasen
yesterday




2




2




(+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
– Rekesoft
yesterday




(+1) Any kind of impactor goes down before exploding sideways. An object so small to make a crater so large is going to make it very deep also. So deep, in fact, that's going to nearly destroy the planet or, at the very least, uncover the upper mantle, from where magma would flood to fill the crater and thus, no crater would remain.
– Rekesoft
yesterday












@Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
– Luaan
yesterday




@Rekesoft The mantle is not liquid. Magma only occurs in a very small part of the volume. If you removed a few km of the rock above and added water from the ocean, some of the material will probably melt - but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of rock that was expelled and vaporized by the impact. If anything, it would help make the crater bed very smooth.
– Luaan
yesterday












@Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
– Rekesoft
yesterday






@Luuan I'm no geologist but we are talking about highly speculative geology here. The mantle behaves as a viscous fluid due the extreme pressures of both the inner mantle and the crust. If we remove the crust above some point of the mantle I would expect some new tectonic rift to appear in there, quicky becoming a crust-creating point. The inner sections of the mantle would literally push up there, being the path of less resistance.
– Rekesoft
yesterday




















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