[Alright_on_the_LeftCoast]

I find it difficult to believe that something weighing several tons would not cause significant damage at impact....defies common sense...is it the mass or weight of an object that causes damage? A meteor weighing several tons would be a catastrophe...yet this isn't? It seems it would produce the same result as a bullet passing through an object, leaving a MUCH bigger hole where it exits....very strange...

[Crazieman]

Several tons, yes, but we're talking about stuff that can barely be seen by electron microscopes.

[ExpatGator]

Maybe an equation of displacement. Big splash versus small splash or disturbance of material.

[CarrotAndStick]

The exit hole is wider because the bullet cross section is deformed on impact and hence "flattens out" the tip as it passes through the medium.

[RightWhale]

Mass isn't the only requirement. Even mass isn't necessary. The ability of the particle to interact with the matter of the earth would be important. It isn't the mass that does it, or the massless photon would have no effect on a sunbather.

[Ichneumon]

I find it difficult to believe that something weighing several tons would not cause significant damage at impact....defies common sense...is it the mass or weight of an object that causes damage?

Mass.

A meteor weighing several tons would be a catastrophe...yet this isn't? It seems it would produce the same result as a bullet passing through an object, leaving a MUCH bigger hole where it exits....very strange...

Except that the cross-section is so tiny. In bullets, for example, even for the same mass and velocity, a higher-caliber (i.e. "fatter") bullet will do more damage than a low-caliber ("skinny") bullet. In the extreme case, imagine a "bullet" which has the mass and velocity of a .45 caliber round, but the shape is like a very thin, very long metal rod. It'll pass through you like a fast needle, doing very little damage outside of the small hole it makes, and most of the energy/momentum of the projectile will just "pass through" your body and keep flying out on the other side -- the amount of energy imparted to the body itself will be much smaller, compared to the effect of a bullet which "mushrooms" to a fatter diameter, like a hollowpoint bullet.

These "stranglets", if they exist, have a lot of mass, but are so very tiny in size that they interact with a lot less of the Earth's material on their way through, compared to a "fat" asteroid of the same mass.

[MindBender26]

Think mass and density.

You are dealing with clumps of sub-atomic particles. Think what atoms would look like with all the space between the nucleus and the orbiting electrons removed. The entire earth could fit into a tablespoon if we removed the inter-atomic space.

These objects weigh several tons but are 1/10 the diameter of a human hair. So with their tremendous weight and speed, they create an observable impact, but since they are so small, little damage.

[spinestein]

[...is it the mass or weight of an object that causes damage?]



The damage is a function of kinetic energy which is equal to the mass times the velocity squared (Ek = m x V squared)

That means that if you double the velocity of the object then you quadruple the damage.