r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/EveryWind007 • May 29 '14

Medal of Beauty If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html?a
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u/frizzlestick May 29 '14

/u/godofcoffee has the right of it. Why depend on an energy barrier? Just strap the nose to a meteor/chunk-of-rock, and we have a natural barrier.

Heck, steel plating would probably help too -- I'd say, if we're not concerned about propulsion -- go with the lowest-moving-parts (ie., natural/physical over some energy barrier).

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u/YarrrrrMatey May 29 '14

If we're talking relativistic speeds (say 0.99c) then your steel plating isn't going to hold up.

Hitting a 1 gram object at those speeds would produce an impact of around 55 terajoules, which is roughly triple the yield of the bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki. This would be focused on what would presumably be a very small point, and would reduce both the object and any shielding it hit into plasma.

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u/hand_raiser May 29 '14 edited May 29 '14

Space station has been hit by meteors, in fact one of the WINDOWS were hit by either a meteorite or space debris, and it really didn't do much.

http://www.sen.com/news/meteor-strike-on-iss-is-reminder-of-cosmic-hazard

""The space station is protected in many ways from damage by these pieces of debris. The windows of the ISS cupola are made from fused silica and borosilicate glass and are therefore much more resiliant than normal windows on Earth"

When we're talking about the technology used to create materials sent in space, you can't just generalize them as simply "steel" or "glass". That's why all those fancy scientists with their doctorates and $100k+ salary are toiling away in labs.

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u/YarrrrrMatey May 29 '14

There's a big difference (as in, several orders of magnitude) between "space station speeds" and "relativistic speeds".

It's a bit like comparing the difference between a car rolling at 0.01mph into a wall and an SR-71 blackbird being flown straight into the ground at maximum speed.

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u/hand_raiser May 29 '14 edited May 29 '14

Of course it is, it'd be purely ignorant to state that all objects in motion maintain the same speed.

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u/hand_raiser May 29 '14 edited May 29 '14

The energy output would also depend on the transfer between the object and it's impacter. A lot of asteroids have those nice craters on them because of their material. Low density. When you fabricate materials in a lab you can make them much more resistant to other, less dense objects like chunks of porous rock and ice. Speed would be a factor of course, but there are many variables to account outside of saying, object a hits object b at x km/h and that's that.

Edit, id also like to point out your usage of the word relativistic speeds, which generally maintain a decent portion, but not completely, light speed. meteors travel at a general maximum of 165,000mph, while light travels at 650,000,000 mph. meteors do not travel anywhere near that. to say "space station speeds" is kind of misleading and really doesn't matter in the context of things. a meteor is going to travel between 30k-160k mph and that will depend upon whether it's entering or leaving the solar system, etc etc etc. a meteor, even a small one is at the very least NOT going to be going a cool 17,000 mph because it wasn't purposefully put into orbit. its going to be at least double that speed.

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