Is a low-speed meteorite impact physically possible?

Question

...so that a huge one will be just sitting on the ground, without breaking up or making a crater?

Answer 1

No, Earth's gravity will always accelerate anything arriving from space by 25,000 miles per hour before it hits. If it was approaching Earth at any speed greater than zero in the first place, then that speed would be added to the 25,000 miles per hour impact speed.

Answer 2

No, but that's a really interesting question!

The best case scenario would be where the velocity of the meteor is the same as the Earth (say, trailing behind Earth in the same direction and at the same speed).

In this case the meteor isn't bringing any kinetic energy of its own to the event, so we only deal with the kinetic energy that is created as it drops to Earth due to the Earth's gravity. Unfortunately, that still means you are dropping a rock from extremely high altitude and will end up with a substantial impact crater.

Answer 3

gravitational acceleration once you enter Earth's gravity is 9.8 m/s².

So basically, even if there was just some wondering huge object free floating in space and it was caught in Earth's gravity (highly doubtfull seeing as how it would need to have escape velocity to break orbit of other large bodies in the solar system), it would hit us with significant impact.

Heck... you'd make a crater if you fell from orbit.

Answer 4

Regardless of how slow the approach to earth, you cannot
get away from the fall to earth from extreme altitude.
A big rock will gain a lot of speed in a fall of a few hundred miles
but you are correct, if conditions are just right, it will not burn
up in earths atmosphere as it will be traveling relatively slowly.

Answer 5

No, the impact velocity of a large meteorite is always very high -- around 40,000 mph or so.

Answer 6

Its called gravity....look it up.