• Question: Could planet earth virtualy shake if a unknown impacted from space to earth the speed of light?

    Asked by balletshoes1998 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by howyilms1.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Planet earth is shaking all the time, from earthquakes, large and small. If we got hit by a meteorite it would definitely shown up on the seismographs they use to detect earthquakes.

      But an meteorite would never get anywhere near the speed on light.

      The only things that can do that are photons, which are also impacting the earth all the time, but they have no mass so we don’t feel it!

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      The whole planet would do more than shake if something big hit it. Though it wouldn’t be travelling at the speed of light (only light and a few weird tiny particle can do that)…

      The last time a big meteorite hit the earth, it killed off all of the dinosaurs, and thousands of species of animals. It would have caused earthquakes and dust in the air which would have blocked out sunlight and made it really cold on Earth.

      But the biggest impact on earth was about 4 billion years ago, when another planet, a bit like Earth, crashed into us, and melted itself and most of Earth. The melted bits flew out into space and made the moon!

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