Thread: What would happen if an asteroid and a meteor collided?

What would happen if an asteroid and a meteor collided? How would it affect the universe? How would it affect the Earth?

Please give a detailed answer.

Thanks!

They do all the time except you're not there to witness it,

A meteor is just a rock, big or small, metallic or not - an asteroid is a bigger rock and
collisions occur all the time most of the time it's in the Kuiper belt so it doesn't affect
us much.

They do collide all the time. Some of the larger asteroids that have been examined and viewed are covered with craters and dust. The dust comes from millions/billions of years of the surface getting pounded by other objects continuously, and the rocky asteroid surface getting ground up. Like crushing chalk with a hammer.

This happens on daily basis. Earth isn't affected at all, MUCH, MUCH less than the universe.

Most meteors are small rocks originally from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Which makes them technically asteroids. So what you are describing is actually asteroid/asteroid collisions, which are extremely common. And since it is so common, the effect upon Earth and the rest of the universe is basically nothing.

There isn't much to detail.

It's basically like a game of pool, except the balls aren't all the same size, or made out of the same thing, and depending on how hard they hit each other, you'll break chunks off.

It's only effect on the Universe is to potentially introduce some smaller chunks of matter off of the original two impacting bodies.

The only way that it could affect us here on Earth would be the incredibly small chance of either the broken pieces or an entire asteroid were sent our way for potential impact.

However, considering that these impact happen thousands and thousands of times per day out in the Asteroid Belt, and they aren't big, high-velocity smacks, that's a very long-shot to worry about.

As you can tell by the craters on this asteroid in the picture, asteroids have been hit many times. Imagine what would happen if Dactyl was a meteor hurtling toward Ida.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020630.html