[Physics] What exactly will happen if a small planet collides with Earth

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This is a video of a simulation of Ceres (a dwarf planet) hitting Earth at 2000km/s.

What strikes me the most, is how fast the shockwave is moving. It takes about 6 minutes for the shockwave to pass through Europe.

So if I saw the collision on the news, I would be able to go on a cliff and watch the shockwave travelling towards me, knowing that within seconds I will be dead and minutes later all life on Earth will be dead.

Earth in the end has a surface temperature of more than 4,000oC.

(This simulation was created with a game-simulator; I know many other elements of this "game" are realistic, but can't tell how accurate this particular simulation is.)

Question:

Assuming same sized object, moving at a more "reasonable" speed (e.g. 50km/s):

  • What will the actual effects of such a collision be (shockwave, temperature, oceans vaporizing, dust, etc)?
  • Would the shockwave be able to kill me if I were in Europe and the object hit US?
  • How fast would the shockwave travel and how much time would it take
    to engulf a country like Iceland?
  • For how long will I be able to watch the shockwave from a 500m high cliff before it reaches me (assuming it will reach me)?

Best Answer

Very generally speaking, a crater is about 10 times the diameter of the meteor, with a direct hit.

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so at some 950 km in diameter, we can guesstimate a crater roughly covering 9,500 km, which is 1/4 the way around the Earth. If we give an impact speed of slightly greater than escape velocity of 12-13 km/s, it would take over a minute to complete it's impact into Earth, but more realistically, in less time than that, the Earth would begin to rebound and push the impacting Ceres back outwards as it's still moving into the earth and that rebound creates enormous stress and crazy heat and to anyone watching it, I would think a blinding flash.

Ceres is large enough to do some crazy-gonzo damage, essentially boiling the oceans and killing virtually all life on earth. It's something in the ballpark of a million times the mass of the dinosaur killing meteor.

I realize I've not answered your question on pressure waves, which is a great question despite the arguably bad simulation video.

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