Chicxulub Impact Simulation

A computer model simulating how an asteroid impact formed the Chicxulub crater. The light grey represents the Earth's crust. The dark grey represents the upper mantle.

Credit: Gareth Collins, Imperial College London

[cameron]

its absolutely insane that the earth went from being 3x deeper that the deepest point of the mariana trench to being nearly 3x higher than mount everest in just under 3 minutes

[jonahmoran]

For anybody wondering what the stuff sloshing around is. That’s the earths crust.

[srinitaaigaura]

Nothing is solid when you apply enough pressure to it. And here the ground was just turned into pure lava.

[adonislimes]

To give context of how extreme this is...

At peak rate the crater/ejecta was widening at roughly the maximum speed of SR-71 (Mach 3.5) or 3000’ per *second*

[George.Coleman]

Just for clarification, 10km is jet cruising altitude, -11km is mariana trench depth... this asteroid punched a hole -30km into the mantle which then bounced up 20km 😮

[jaywulf]

It made a hole THIRTY KILOMETERS DEEP that filled up right after impact.
Good luck building anti-asteroid bunkers.

[smnoy]

The thing about the impact is that it wasn’t like in the movies, where the asteroid dramatically streaks across the sky in a cinematic fireball. One moment it was a perfectly normal day in the late Cretaceous. The next moment, the world had ended.

[surma]

Imagine the crust displacement Mt.Everest would cause shrinking into the earth at Mach 3 speeds…There are no comparisons at the size of earthquakes felt even 100 miles from ground zero. Amazing Simulation! thank you.

[Dryootube]

The earth is moving a an incredible rate in that simulation, is there any way to gauge the magnitude of earthquakes produced and the duration in such a simulation?

[anonymous-rbsr]

when you're casually watching the shooting stars when suddenly the ground rises 50 kilometers in 20 seconds

[therealestcad]

when the mound was formed post-impact, it was the highest mountain in the world

[cacildeasa]

Here at home we call this the 'Poseidon's Kiss', and the asteroid has another name too.

[zeff]

The fact that the peak ring reached more than 20 km, higher than mt everest!

[kclz]

I like how the Earth goes “burp!” about 320 seconds after consuming a particularly large meal

[redditstoriesfuny]

Light grey represents the earths crust
Normal grey represents the upper-mantle
Dark grey represents the mantle

[sandrojohnson]

0:15 what was that? Built of pressure?

[The_Devil_Himself]

Is the 2-3 kilometer thick grey line at the very top the ocean?

[Adino]

I'd love to see this slowed down to real time.

[nagualdesign]

At this scale I would have expected to see seismic waves. If P waves travel at around 6 km/s I thought there'd be a ripple. Is the magnitude of the waves too small to be visible?

[BetaBoyzD]

Great video! What software did you use? Is it open source? I would love to play around with this!