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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2096955 No.2096955 [Reply] [Original]

Hypothetical from the shitty movie I watched on Sci-Fi yesterday:

A meteor about 100 km wide but twice as massive as earth (and therefore 160 times as massive as the moon) smashes into the moon (in the movie it was a "brown dwarf fragment"). Wat happens?

A) The moon remains in orbit for a few months, but gradually drifts closer and closer to earth, heading for a collision JUST far enough in the future for the heroes to save the Earth by blowing up shittons of nukyoolar missles.
B) The meteor blows a hole straight through the moon and continues on its way, possibly screwing up the orbits of the moon and/or earth in the process.
C) The meteor blows the moon the fuck up and the earth is showered with billions and billions of tons of moon debris, killing everyone.
D) Other?

>> No.2096968

D) Captain Kirk arrives from the future to blow up the meteor before it gets here.

>> No.2096971

the asteroid would probably just take the moon with it on it's trip to wherever the fuck it was headed

>> No.2096975

depends greatly on the speed and angle it hit from.

>> No.2097012

>>2096975
...I left the door wide open to any speculation you wanted OP.
Come at me bro.

But in all honesty, if it's 160 times the mass of the moon in 1/42,000 the space, it's going to be 6.7 million times as dense. Option B sounds the best unless it just casually bumps it at a non-interesting speed, in which case the Earth-moon system will have a much larger mass, and both us and the moon will revolve around this comet. Other planets probably won't be affected at all though.

>> No.2097018

>>2097012
*asteroid, not comet.

>> No.2097019

>>2097012
>>2096975
in the movie it just whacked into it broadside, left a giant hole, and lodged itself into the middle of the moon.

>> No.2097024

>A) The moon remains in orbit for a few months, but gradually drifts closer and closer to earth, heading for a collision JUST far enough in the future for the heroes to save the Earth by blowing up shittons of nukyoolar missles.
The fact you think we could blow up something 160 times the moon by mass with nuclear missiles is laughable.

>> No.2097034

>>2097019
Hmm, I wonder what the drag through the moon would be...

>> No.2097041

>>2096955 meteor

Surely you meen meteoroid. It is impossible for a meteor to hit the moon, because the moon as no atmosphere.

>> No.2097052

>160 times as massive as an object 1/6th the earth's mass
>also twice as massive as the earth
>at the same time

what is this I don't even

>> No.2097049

>>2097024
still better than the one movie where an asteroid hit the moon JUST RIGHT to cause the moon to slowly split into two halves, and they had to send a demolitions expert to the moon to figure out where to place the nukes to put it back together.

Spoiler: In EVERY space disaster scifi B-movie, the resolution will in some way involve large numbers of nuclear weapons.

>> No.2097053

A "white dwarf fragment" or a neutron star fragment would have made much more sense.

Option B and C are likely if it has a high velocity.

A is quite far out, as it has to be moving very, very slowly. Also, it's so massive that the orbits would be totally thrown out of whack. The earth and moon would orbit a common center of gravity.

>> No.2097057

>>2097052
1/6 the surface gravity != 1/6 the mass

>> No.2097065

>>2097019

Something that dense hitting the moon would be more like shooting skeet.

>> No.2097067
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2097067

i imagine something similar to this would happen

>> No.2097072

>>2096955


>Hypothetical from the shitty movie I watched on Sci-Fi yesterday:

Which movie OP? I like shitty sci fi movies.

>> No.2097083

>>2097072
can't remember the title right now. brb, trying to find it.

>> No.2097094

Ah, here. Found a trailer even.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3068791/impact_movie_trailer/

It's 4 hours long, so there's a whole lot of character development bullshit to fast-forward through, but the special effects are well above average.

>> No.2097096
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2097096

>A meteor about 100 km wide but twice as massive as earth

That's way too much mass, too close and in too small a space to create a "fixable" problem.

The moon splatters everywhere, and the Earth is likely wrenched right out of its stable orbit around the sun. That massive fragment will probably fuck up the orbits of Mars and Venus too, just by passing through.

Between tidal forces from the passing fragment and the debris from the moon's destruction, the Earth's surface is effectively destroyed.

>> No.2097140
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2097140

>>2097094
>if the electromagnetic energy is powerful enough, it will override local gravity

>> No.2097214

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_%28TV_miniseries%29#Scientific_Reaction

>The "Impact" miniseries received little comment from the scientific community due to its lack of realism, incorrect use of terminology, and basic misunderstanding of the law of gravity, as we currently understand it.