Reply to post: At those speeds...

Star wreck: There's a 1 in 20 chance a NASA telescope and US military satellite will smash into each other today

Luiz Abdala
Mushroom

At those speeds...

That few kilograms (90,5kg) satellite hits like a...

A warhead fired from the 16-inch guns of the USS Iowa doesn't even BEGIN to describe the carnage.

If it was in the atmosphere, the speed could be numbered as Mach 42.8, as is FORTY-TWO times the speed of sound.

A handy Kinetic Energy calculator online allowed the comparison: if it was a locomotive at 100 metric tons, it would be moving at 440m/s or Mach 1.28.

Plugging in the USS Iowa 16-inch gun numbers (thanks wikipedia, 1225kg at 762m/s) you'd have a salvo of 27,3 warheads.

Considering USS Iowa had nine of those-guns, that's the equivalent firepower of a triple broadside gun salute floating in space.

Have fun making comparisons. I love to compare those numbers to a motorcyclist moving at ever-increasing speeds, but in this case, the numbers stop making sense half-way through.

Have fun yourself:

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/kinetic.php

Well, I assumed that large satellite is standing still, and the small one is moving at those relative speeds. If you assume the small one is still, the large one is moving at those speeds, that changes the kinetic energy involved... substantially. Which makes it worse. Matter of point of reference here, I won't bother to solve.

Because we have only the relative speeds...

Anyway.

Brainstorm from there.

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