How much damage can a meteorite do?
A lot more than you would think!
The average speed of meteoroids entering our atmosphere is 10-70 km/second. The smaller ones that survive the trip to the Earth's surface are quickly slowed by friction to speeds of a few hundred kilometers per hour, and so hit the Earth with no more speed than if they had been dropped from a tall building. For meteorites larger than a few hundred tons, friction has little effect on the speed and they hit the Earth with the impact. Meteorties have enormous kinetic energy, The hole that they make when hitting soft ground is normally only a little bigger that the meteorite itself. Very large meteorites, of 100 tonnes or more are not slowed by atmospheric drag as much as their smaller cousins, they are still travelling so fast that they explode on impact. They will explode with the effect of a nuclear bomb. This forms a crater far bigger than the meteorite.
The Barringer Crater
The best-preserved of large meteor impacts. It struck what is now the Arizona desert 49,000 years ago.
Wow....what a hole!
Meteorite smashes into Nicaraguan capital leaving 12-metre crater
This one could do some damage!
A 600kg rock, believed to be one of the largest pieces of this meteorite, is currently being exhibited at the Chelyabinsk Regional History Museum.