Whenever you see pictures of craters left behind by a meteor, all you can see is a big empty hole, but what happens to the meteor?
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A mixture of it’s part of the hole and it blows up into rocks and dust and spreads itself around the area. For example the meteor that killed the dinosaurs contained traces of minerals not found naturally on Earth. When that meteor struck so much of it was obliterated and converted into dust that it went up into the atmosphere and settled around the planet for months. There is a specific layer of rock you can dig up pretty much anywhere that is the millimeter or two of Dinosaur-killing-meteor-dust, it’s called the “K-T Boundary”
Vaporized, melted, or otherwise obliterated.
Large space rocks come hauling in at 30,000 mph and hit the ground without bleeding off any speed on the entry.
The amount of energy released is comparable to a nuclear bomb, and they’re gone in an instant.
Very large impactors that cause mass extinction events go one step more violent and drive through the crust of the earth entirely, plunging into the mantle and leaving a gigantic molten pit.
The meteor generally gets pulverized into little pieces by the force of the impact. This forms a layer of what are called “impact rocks,” which are new rocks made out of the broken pieces of the meteor (and the broken pieces of whatever rock the meteor hit)
Thank you for the insightful answers, but now I have more questions. How would impact on water effect the meteor? I’m guessing in a similar way, but the dust dispersing into the air wouldn’t happen?
They mostly vaporize or explode. There are typically chunks of them embedded in the sides and floor of the crater and often spread for a wide distance around.
Because of the sheer energy involved, it’d be pretty rare to find the main mass of a meteor still lying intact in its crater.
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