4 ms·
"Even a fleck of shed paint a tenth of a millimeter across carries as much kinetic energy as a rifle bullet when it's traveling at orbital velocity" Just wow.
by DarkTree 11y ago
"Even a fleck of shed paint a tenth of a millimeter across carries as much kinetic energy as a rifle bullet when it's traveling at orbital velocity"
Just wow.
- 19870213 11y agoThis is what is assumed to have happened to STS-7 (Challenger, not fatal), check the photo of the impact crater in the window here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
- fsiefken 11y agoIf you haven't seen the movie Gravity and the imagining of high velocity orbital space debris yet... go see it!
- chrisBob 11y agoLow earth orbit is about 8km/sec. That means you could have a collision anywhere in the 0-16km/sec relative velocity range.
- theandrewbailey 11y agoXKCD What if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
- mrmcd 11y ago"This means that if an astronaut on the ISS listens to I'm Gonna Be, in the time between the first beat of the song and the final lines ... they will have traveled just about exactly 1,000 miles." https://www.google.com/webhp?q=1000%20miles%20%2F%208%20km%2Fs https://www.google.com/webhp?q=1000%20miles%20%2F%208%20km%2... WHOA
- Jabbles 11y agoNot if it's a cube: Volume = 1e-4 ^ 3 = 1e-12 m^3 Assume density 1kg/l Mass = 1e-9kg Velocity = 8000m/s KE = 0.032J Mass of bullet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_firearms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_firearms) A .44 Remington Magnum with a 240-grain (0.016 kg) ...(360m/s) Which has 1036.8J of kinetic energy. So the ratio is actually about 32400 in favor of the bullet. But note that this will change with the cube of the size mentioned, so even though this is exaggerated, a fleck of paint 3mm across would make the quote reasonably accurate.