Tens of thousands of asteroids – that we know of – are roaming our solar system. These are building blocks made up of metal, silicates, and ice left over from the beginning of time when the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and their moons were assembling.
For the most part, the asteroids quietly orbit the Sun – but sometimes they collide with each other or the planets and their moons. An asteroid hitting a planetary surface is called a meteorite. When a meteorite moves at a hyper-speed, between 10km and 70km per second, the collision releases an enormous wave of energy and leaves something in its place on the planetary surface.
