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We see examples undamaged by impact all the time.
On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Chris Peterson wrote:
> It depends on the mass of the body. But realistically, under "typical"
> conditions that might lead to meteorite production, I think it's safe to say
> that this happens almost instantly.
>
> For example, a 100 kg stone that survives to 20 km height will be
> experiencing a deceleration of ~1500 m/s^2. A 10 kg stone will experience
> ~4000 m/s^2. Of course, no stone is likely to survive the forces that would
> result without breaking up. You need to play all sorts of games with
> different parameters for mass, speed, and height to find survivable
> scenarios. They all produce a very short period of dark flight before
> terminal velocity.
>
> This is why the retardation point is typically overhead any strewn field,
> and you don't usually have meteorites significantly down field from the
> retardation point. In fact, wind during dark flight may move meteorites
> farther than their last bit of momentum did- and that can be in any
> direction.