It's like uncorking the world's most carbonated beverage. What happens when a planet gets decompressed by 50 percent is something we don't understand very well at this stage, but it can shift the chemistry and physics all over the place, producing a complexity of materials that could very well account for the heterogeneity we see in meteorites.

As two massive objects pass near each other, gravitational forces induce dramatic physical changes -- decompressing, melting, stripping material away and even annihilating the smaller object.

Some asteroids look like small planets, not very disturbed, and at the other end of the spectrum are ones that look like iron-rich dog bones in space.

We're looking at what happens when worlds collide.