# A Meteor Strike Like in the Toyota Commercial **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2005, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477 "2005-11-17T13:32:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/1 "2005-11-17T13:32:55Z")
There’s a Toyota commercial on TV where a bunch of guys are in the wilderness, filming something with their video cameras, and a meteor flies out of space and hits the ground. The guys are knocked over, then they gather themselves up and marvel at a Toyota pickup truck that just drove by. You never really get a good look at the meteor, but I’d say it’s supposed to be somewhere around half the size of late 70’s-era Honda Civic. The guys seem to be about 300-400 feet from the meteor strike. I’m by no means an expert on this type of thing, but my first impression is that, were this to really happen in real life, such a meteor strike would, at the very least, kill everone within a half mile of it. Can anyone speak to this? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/2 "2005-11-17T13:34:57Z")
[Snopes says fake](http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/meteor.asp) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/3 "2005-11-17T13:54:19Z")
Just want to note that an old Time-Life book had a picture of a woman _struck by_ a meteorite (that has to win some sort of prize for spectacularly bad luck). She had a _bruise_. I don’t know how big it was, and I think it came in through the roof, spending a lot of its momentum there, but a meteorite strike isn’t necessarily fatal – it didn’t even break her skin. Another picture shows a car struck bu, but not totaled by, a meteorite. So meteorite strikes are not invariably massively destructive. Of course, these were pretty small meteorites. Something the size of a car would be a different story, but if it buried itself in soft earth instead of fragmenting, it’s not clear to me that it would be fatal to people nearby. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/4 "2005-11-17T14:17:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Just want to note that an old Time-Life book had a picture of a woman _struck by_ a meteorite (that has to win some sort of prize for spectacularly bad luck). She had a _bruise_. There’s a photo of the unfortunate Annie Hodges and her bruising on [this page](http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/bsimonso/group9.htm). There’s another photo of her [here](http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/im-meteor/strikes.html) together with some of damage to assorted cars. The famous fatality story that’s oft-repeated is [an Egyptian dog in 1911](http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2004/07/23-0001.html). > [@](#): > > I don’t know how big it was, and I think it came in through the roof, spending a lot of its momentum there The second page above reports it as having been eight pounds. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/5 "2005-11-17T14:28:14Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > [Snopes says fake](http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/meteor.asp) Yet it’s every bit as realistic as the meteor strike witnessed by Steven McQueen and his teen friends in “The Blob.” ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/6 "2005-11-17T14:39:25Z")
Wouldn’t a meteor collision be more like something **falling** from the sky, rather than like a rocket being propelled into the ground? In other words, the ‘trajectory’ or angle at which it impacts should be almost zero, should it not? Just about every impact crater I’ve seen (round and symetrical) seems to confirm that meteors basically fall straight down…like any other object. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/7 "2005-11-17T14:45:43Z")
How a meteorite falls and how fast it falls depend upon its velocity before coming to earth. If the direction it comes in at is opposite the direction of rotation, it can have as pretty hefty velocity relative to the eartgh’s surface. I doubt if an meteorite ever falls “straight down”. all pictures, films, accounts, and reconstructions show quite a bit of velocity horizontally. Besides, even if you just hoisted a big rock up to the top of the atmosphere and dropped it straight down, it’d make a pretty impressive smack, even with atmospheric friction eating up some energy. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/8 "2005-11-17T14:48:36Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > Just about every impact crater I’ve seen (round and symetrical) seems to confirm that meteors basically fall straight down…like any other object. It would depend on the angle at which they approach the planet I guess. Planet killers are those that strike at an angle and don’t direct their kinetic energy straight into the planet. Some of this is released over the planet’s surface, taking out the rest of the world with it. I remember seeing a documentary a while back showing the near misses and hits the planet has had over the years. Quite a few meteor impact sites are unnoticed (years later obviously) until seen from the air. What seemed like small lakes in some parts of the world being places where meteors broke up and smashed into the ground at an angle. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/9 "2005-11-17T15:12:56Z")
> [@](#): > > It would depend on the angle at which they approach the planet I guess. Craters [tend to be round _regardless_ of the angle of impact:](http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/space/solarsystem/meteors/MakeACrater.html) > [@](#): > > Many astronomers once assumed that objects that landed at an angle would produce elongated craters. However, by firing rifle bullets into mud, Daniel Morea Barringer discovered that the impacts would be round. Later studies showed that rather than digging a trench, a high velocity impact actually causes an explosion. This explosion forces material outward equally in all directions independent of the angle of impact. … [Earth Impact Map](http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/CILocSort.html) … ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/10 "2005-11-17T15:23:19Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > [Snopes says fake](http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/meteor.asp) Yes, I know it’s fake. That’s why I said “…if this were to really happen in real life.” ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-meteor-strike-like-in-the-toyota-commercial/331477/11 "2005-11-17T15:27:48Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > There’s a Toyota commercial on TV where a bunch of guys are in the wilderness, filming something with their video cameras, and a meteor flies out of space and hits the ground. The guys are knocked over, then they gather themselves up and marvel at a Toyota pickup truck that just drove by. In the commercial I saw, they’re actually filming the truck which takes a direct hit and then drives away.