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> I can't imagine how something like this impact in this location could have caused massive fires in North America I'm no scientist but my initial thought woul
by MadcapJake 8y ago
> I can't imagine how something like this impact in this location could have caused massive fires in North America
I'm no scientist but my initial thought would be that the asteroid prior to impact could have broken up during entry and scattered debris across North America.
- craftyguy 8y agoAn object with a diameter of roughly 1.5km (which is very close to 1 mile) doesn't break up in the atmosphere. Considering that the vast majority of the atmosphere's mass is within the first 16 km, this object has a width just over 9% of the thickness of the most dense part of the atmosphere), and it's likely moving at tens of thousands of km per second. It would have punched right on through the atmosphere in no time, impacted the Earth, and ejected molten crust all over the place.