[null and void]

It’s possible that asteroids like Bennu — barely held together by gravity or electrostatic force — could break apart in Earth’s atmosphere and thus pose a different type of hazard than solid asteroids.

No kidding?

A hundred tons of solid rock hitting the atmosphere will scorch off a few tons on the way down, make a big sonic boom (think Chelyabinsk) thump into the ground and leave a smallish crater and local damage.

A hundred tons of gravel hitting the atmosphere will disintegrate and every single ounce of that hundred tons moving at tens of thousands of miles per hour will be exposed to static atmosphere at the same time, be frictionally super heated, flash from solid to white hot vapor. None of the solids will make it to the ground, but only as re-condensed pinheads of glassy rock. No crater.

On the other hand, the shock wave from all that energy released in a small space and time (think Tunguska) will flatten pretty much everything for 50 miles or more.

[Red Badger]

As the asteroid approaches Earth, it will be pulled apart into a string of separate groups and individual rocks like the comet that struck Jupiter.

Hopefully they will mostly burn up as they enter the atmosphere........................