3 ms·

Also figuring 10g of mass, an online calculator suggests it would have about 4 megatons of tnt worth of kinetic energy, or 8% of the Tsar Bomba. Not negligible

Also figuring 10g of mass, an online calculator suggests it would have about 4 megatons of tnt worth of kinetic energy, or 8% of the Tsar Bomba. Not negligible but not planet destroying either.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
for comparison, the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor was "estimated ... to be equivalent to the blast yield of 400–500 kilotons of TNT" And it caused broken windows, other damage, over 1000 injuries. This would be 10x larger? To be fair, if that meteor had hit over a big city, it would have caused much more damage. More probable if it had hit over open ocean, it would have done very little. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
That's almost suspiciously similar to the Tunguska event, [1] a 3-30 megaton event from 1908, which flattened a large area of Siberian forest. Airburst meteorites hit fairly frequently in our solar system. I don't even know if you could detect a difference between an extrasolar high-velocity (60,000 km/s) low-mass (10^-2 kg) airburst and an interplanetary 'low'-velocity (27 km/s) high-mass (10^+9 kg) airburst. Importantly, these events are purely thermal, not nuclear, so there would be no radioactive fallout. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
- deleted 4y ago
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philipkglass 4y ago
I get 1.85 * 10^13 joules for 10 grams at 0.2 c from https://physicscalc.com/physics/relativistic-kinetic-energy-calculator https://physicscalc.com/physics/relativistic-kinetic-energy-..., or about 4.4 kilotons of TNT equivalent. I think that you may have slipped a factor of 1000 somewhere (calculating for a 10 kilogram probe, maybe?)
- Archelaos 4y ago
  I also checked it, but you were faster to publish. My result was also 4.4 kilotons TNT equivalent, not megatons.
deleted 4y ago
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Also figuring 10g of mass, an online calculator suggests it would have about 4 megatons of tnt worth of kinetic energy, or 8% of the Tsar Bomba. Not negligible but not planet destroying either.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago

for comparison, the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor was "estimated ... to be equivalent to the blast yield of 400–500 kilotons of TNT" And it caused broken windows, other damage, over 1000 injuries. This would be 10x larger? To be fair, if that meteor had hit over a big city, it would have caused much more damage. More probable if it had hit over open ocean, it would have done very little. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

LeifCarrotson 4y ago

That's almost suspiciously similar to the Tunguska event, [1] a 3-30 megaton event from 1908, which flattened a large area of Siberian forest. Airburst meteorites hit fairly frequently in our solar system. I don't even know if you could detect a difference between an extrasolar high-velocity (60,000 km/s) low-mass (10^-2 kg) airburst and an interplanetary 'low'-velocity (27 km/s) high-mass (10^+9 kg) airburst. Importantly, these events are purely thermal, not nuclear, so there would be no radioactive fallout. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

deleted 4y ago
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philipkglass 4y ago

I get 1.85 * 10^13 joules for 10 grams at 0.2 c from https://physicscalc.com/physics/relativistic-kinetic-energy-calculator https://physicscalc.com/physics/relativistic-kinetic-energy-..., or about 4.4 kilotons of TNT equivalent. I think that you may have slipped a factor of 1000 somewhere (calculating for a 10 kilogram probe, maybe?)

Archelaos 4y ago
I also checked it, but you were faster to publish. My result was also 4.4 kilotons TNT equivalent, not megatons.

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