3 ms·
I occasionally wonder about whether there are any objects out there traveling at a measurable fraction of c, could something even get through the atmosphere wit
by iaw 8y ago
I occasionally wonder about whether there are any objects out there traveling at a measurable fraction of c, could something even get through the atmosphere without disintegrating near those speeds?
- krapp 8y agoWould something moving that quickly and carrying that much energy be more likely to disintegrate in the atmosphere, or to disintegrate the atmosphere?
- pjc50 8y agoBoth, I suspect. At that speed, there's no point in talking about "flow" around it, it would simply compress all the atmosphere hit into a disc of plasma. The object would be disintegrated, but all the momentum has to transfer to the plasma disc instead. It would produce an impressive crater.
- jcims 8y agoRelativistic baseball explores some of that. https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/