By Newton's third law, when two objects collide, the forces they exert on each other are what?
AnswerEqual and opposite
Each object pushes on the other with the same size force in the opposite direction, even if one is much lighter.
Science · Facts & stats
Impact facts & stats
7 fact-checked facts about impacts and collisions, each with the reason behind it. 5 more are in today's round and join this page after it closes.
The basics
Why are cars built with crumple zones?
AnswerTo absorb energy by deforming in a crash
Crumpling spreads a collision over more time, which reduces the forces on the people inside.
Going deeper
The 1908 explosion that flattened a huge area of forest in Siberia is known as what?
AnswerThe Tunguska event
An asteroid or comet fragment exploded in the air over a remote Siberian region, flattening tens of millions of trees.
Which planet was struck by fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1994?
AnswerJupiter
In July 1994 more than 20 comet fragments hit this giant planet, leaving dark scars visible from Earth.
Arizona's Meteor Crater (Barringer Crater) is roughly how wide?
AnswerAbout 1.2 km
The crater was blasted out by an iron-rich space rock roughly 50,000 years ago.
Expert level
The kinetic energy of a moving object depends on its mass and what?
AnswerThe square of its speed
Kinetic energy is ½mv², so doubling an impactor's speed quadruples its energy.
In 2022, NASA's DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into which small asteroid moonlet?
AnswerDimorphos
The impact shortened the moonlet's orbit around its parent asteroid, the first real test of asteroid deflection.
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