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What happens to a meteorite when it hits a planetary surface at hypervelocity?

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four impact craters — Meteorite crater Four impact craters of the same size (30 km [20 miles] in diameter) imaged by spacecraft on different solid bodies of the solar system and reproduced at the same scale. They are (clockwise from upper left) Golubkhina crater on Venus, Kepler crater on the Moon, an unnamed crater on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and an unnamed crater on Mars. The images are oriented such that the craters appear illuminated from the left; the Venusian crater is imaged in radar wavelengths, the others in visible light.

When a meteorite strikes a planetary surface at hypervelocity—typically several tens of kilometers per second—it undergoes a process far more energetic than a simple mechanical collision, often compared to an atomic bomb explosion.1

Upon impact, the meteorite and the surface material are subjected to intense shock waves that dissipate energy and create zones of vaporized, melted, and crushed rock. In most cases, the meteorite is completely vaporized by the massive release of kinetic energy.1

The resulting impact creates a depression, or crater, through the following sequence:

Excavation: Expanding shock and rarefaction waves generate subsurface pressure gradients that project material upward and outward, forming a parabolic bowl.1
Ejecta: Material thrown from the crater forms an ejecta blanket surrounding the rim.1
Modification: For larger craters, the initial cavity may collapse, leading to complex features such as central peaks, raised rings, or terraced inner walls.1

While smaller craters remain simple parabolic bowls, larger structures undergo this modification stage to become complex craters or, in the case of very large impacts, impact basins.1