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#1 2012-03-23 10:09:57
- karov
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- From: Bulgaria
- Registered: 2004-06-03
- Posts: 953
Planemo Hypervelocity Impactors
There are many methods proposed for dismantling jovian planets ( the Dyson motor ), star-lifting ( Birch, Criswell ), pin-point novas ( Duncan Lunan ), etc. etc.
Here it is another method : targetted gravitational slingshot by supermassive black holes. : http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2012/pr201206.html
Using the good old http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ , it is clear that say, Vesta-sized impactors hitting at 4-5% c DOES burst Earth-mass plannets to bits.
I wonder how tolerant is the Sun to such shots and what are the eventual effects on it by planemos penetrating into it with several % the lightspeed.
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#2 2012-04-06 07:30:03
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 7,910
Re: Planemo Hypervelocity Impactors
My objectives would be more consirvative.
Warm up an icy planet with an impactor prior to habitation.
A strange thing I encountered is this:
1) I can read all kinds of speculation on propelling a star ship across light years with lasers.
2) When I proposed deflecting potential impactors to an orbit which would cause a useful impact, I was told a laser would spread too much, there was no way it could work.
3) When I proposed using a laser to ping a distant object to gain information about it I was also told that a laser would spread too much.
So what is needed is focusing optics for the laser to work for case 1, and then presumable for case 2 and 3?
Although Ice is volitile, I might wonder if it could be turned into very large and precise and repairable lenses for such a purpose.
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#3 2012-04-06 13:46:36
- karov
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- From: Bulgaria
- Registered: 2004-06-03
- Posts: 953
Re: Planemo Hypervelocity Impactors
Void,
1. Impactors used in non-destructive applications? Yes, of course, but you do not need SO high velocities, and so long waiting times ( of thousands and dozens of thousands of years ), when you can colide infra-system bodies with speeds of dozens of km/s and waiting times of years to dozens of years.
2. Concentrating optics for lasers -- if you put the concentrating lense too close to the body, than why to use a laser when you could collect natural star light? A laser could be very powerful indeed - solaser beaming straight from the surface of the nearest star. ...
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My estimates about Vesta-like object diving into a Sun-like star with 20 000 km/s.
Sun is over million km wide and with average density of 300ish kg / m3. ( 1/3rd of water ). Hence we presume that the object will give in all its kinetic energy until not so huge depth. The interstellar bullet will evaporate and release all its kinetic energy in form of heat only 10^4ish km deep into the Sun.
Hence the impact explosive event will last a second or two.
Vesta is 2.59 x 10^20 kg.
Vsquared/2 = 2x10^14
The released on impact energy into the Sun would be
E(impact) = 5x10^34 J
1.2×10^34 J is the total energy output of the Sun for one year.
The impact will release 4 times the annual output of the Sun in a split second.
There are 31 557 600 seconds in a year.
Powerwise such kaboom would outperform the Sun 120 million TIMES!!!
5x10^34 Watts!
5 × 10^36W – astro: approximate luminosity of the Milky Way galaxy.
Entire 1% of the Galactic luminocity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6.9×10^41 J is the gravitational binding energy of the Sun.
The energy of the impact will be million of times lower than needed to spill over a Sun-like star, but such tremendous injection of energy will disrupt the Virial theorem fine balance...
How?
How much plasma will vomit around the central luminary?
How luminous for a while it would be? ...
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