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Glite Dictionary
meteor impact

meteor impact

1 5.1
A collision when a rock from space hits a planet's surface
  • noun
  • /ˈmiːtiɔr ˈɪmpækt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : impacto de meteorito
  • Large meteor impacts can create significant changes in the landscape of a planet, including forming deep craters.
  • meteor impact crater

Would it be the expansion of the sun, meteor impact, or gamma radiation?

Examples

  • If a catastrophe occurred tomorrow (giant meteor impact, nuclear armageddon), these sites would be left unmarked and unsealed.

    Blog text (12)

  • Would it be the expansion of the sun, meteor impact, or gamma radiation?

    StarTalk

  • I'm beginning to think the crevasse is fairly young; otherwise, a meteor impact would have caused the slump before we did.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • You've got erosion, lava flow, sand storms, meteor impacts.

    Mission to Mars (2000)

  • The transition makes sense, since the factors that promote relaxation increase with size: the strength of gravity, the heat generated by radioactive isotopes, and the heat generated by meteor impacts.

    Academic text (1996)

  • Up to 3.8 billion years ago, meteor impacts continually vaporized the Earth's oceans, braised its surface, and spewed off dense clouds of gaseous rock.

    Academic text (1996)

  • Scientists have studied many meteor impacts to understand their effects on planetary surfaces.

  • The dark spots on the moon are craters formed by meteor impacts that occurred millions of years ago.

Synonyms

impact
vsmeteor impact
371 3.7

A sudden, forceful hit between two things

is the specific event of one incoming space object striking a world
collision
vsmeteor impact
148 3.8

A crash when two moving vehicles hit each other

is a single incoming space object striking a world rather than mutual hits

How Destructive

meteor impact
  • Specialized
1 5.1

Surface Forms

meteor impact singular
meteor impacts plural

Morphology

meteor + impact

The meaning is directly compositional: a 'meteor' (space object) undergoing an 'impact' (violent collision) yields the event of a meteor colliding with a surface. This is a literal noun–noun combination with no idiomatic shift and mirrors constructions in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Meteor impact creates a clear picture: a large meteor, a rock from space, crashing with a heavy impact into the ground and making a big hole as dust and fire fly up. So meteor impact means 'the event when a space rock hits the surface of Earth or another planet'.