3 ms·
I did some quick calculations: The energy of the impact from the stored kinetic energy gained by falling fro 15,000m is about the same as half a kiloton of TNT
by jiggawatts 1y ago
I did some quick calculations: The energy of the impact from the stored kinetic energy gained by falling fro 15,000m is about the same as half a kiloton of TNT going off. That's focused into a circle just 80cm in diameter.
- kragen 1y agoYet setting off half a tonne of TNT on the ground, or even just under it, won't penetrate 60 meters deep, or even 15; it will just blast open a shallow crater. A shaped charge will do only a little better.
- Qem 1y agoYour calculations appear to be off by a factor of ~1000. Not half a kiloton, but half a ton (~500kg), assuming fall in a vacuum (upper bound on impact energy): Python 3.10.12 (main, May 27 2025, 17:12:29) [GCC 11.4.0] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information. MOP_potential_energy = 13607*9.8*15000 # E = m*g*h MOP_potential_energy 2000229000.0 TNT_specific_energy = 4.184e9/1000 # joule/kg TNT_specific_energy 4184000.0 MOP_potential_energy/TNT_specific_energy 478.0662045889101
- kragen 1y agoOh, yeah, I redid the calculations myself and also got 400-some kg. I didn't notice the tonne vs. kiloton error!