There are a whole bunch of tough-to-avoid assumptions which make the 2046 joules likely to be imprecise. And in any case, as you say, force is ultimately the r

There are a whole bunch of tough-to-avoid assumptions which make the 2046 joules likely to be imprecise. And in any case, as you say, force is ultimately the relevant issue. The article is meant more to put the impact into perspective by comparing it with familiar projectiles, and not so much as an objective modeling of the impact. Edit: by way of full disclosure, I wrote the article.