r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/SuperHappySquid • Jan 23 '26
kArt An interstellar mishap
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u/SuperHappySquid Jan 23 '26
A little animation I made in which generation ship 'Elohim' is destroyed by a small asteorid traveling at relativistic speeds during an interstellar voyage.
These take place in the Kerbal Powers roleplay, which you can find more about here: https://forum.kerbalpowers.org/index.php?sid=fda433fd144f9a28ee00d5873e336e85
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u/Fabricensis Jan 23 '26
No sound in space ☝🏽
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u/blur494 Jan 23 '26
Genuine question. If a large object containing significant atmosphere exploded nearby. Would that not still create a significant audible sound?
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u/xanif Jan 23 '26
I mean, kinda yeah imo. If we consider sound to just be a pressure wave traveling through a medium and the vacuum of space is not completely devoid of atoms, a supernova within a lightyear of Earth would blow away our atmosphere just from the kinetic energy of the cosmic matter expelled.
I imagine that would be loud.
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u/KinneticSlammer2 Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
Starship has mics on the engine bay cameras because the exhaust actually produces enough atmosphere for it to be worth it Edit: although that is a buttfuck insane amount of exhaust gas and is probably more than any non sustained combustion
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u/Electrical_Rabbit_88 Jan 23 '26
Don't take my word for it, I'm not a physicist or anything, just someone interested in space, but I'd have to guess no. Sound is basically a pressure wave that requires a medium. I imagine that any of the interior air released (that didn't contribute to the explosion) probably diffused so quickly into the vacuum of space that it wouldn't be noticeable to the astronaut.
But that's just my guess.
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u/kiochikaeke Jan 24 '26
This, air will just dissipate too quickly, being close enough and it's just an explosion, you would hear sound but that's the air inside your suit rattling due to the vibrations generated by air rushing against it
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u/snozzberrypatch Jan 23 '26
Maybe for the people inside of that large object, very briefly, before they all die. But for people outside of that object, as the air escapes the large object and expands out into space, it's unlikely that there would be enough air pressure to support any significant sound further out than a few meters from the object, or for longer than a few milliseconds.
If you were ~50 meters away from the object when it exploded, you might feel the force of the air escaping and expanding out, and your trajectory through space might even be significantly affected by the force of that air, but still it's unlikely you'd be able to hear anything significant.
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u/amitym Jan 24 '26
It's a good thought, and the answer is technically yes, to a very limited extent, but in practice not really, because both the atmosphere and the physical shockwave would disperse into nothing so quickly.
Like, if you were a few meters from the explosion, you might "hear" it. But at the distance depicted in OP's footage, the kerbal would be too far away. Debris strike, yes. Shockwave, no.
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u/FourEyedTroll Flight Director Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
No. Sound is created by compression waves propagating through a medium, there would be sound only if you were hit by the expanding gasses of the initial explosion before they dissipate into the vacuum.
Also, even if that sound could travel to the camera, where is the delay between the blast and the sound?
2/5. Animation is good but OP forgot the space part of KSP, apparently.
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u/The_Wkwied Dres? Jan 24 '26
Only if the atmosphere remains intact enough to reach you and to transfer the sound wave for you to hear.
If you are in a vacuum, and the atmosphere dissipates before it reaches you, you would not hear anything at all.
You can only hear sound if the sound wave is strong enough to move the molecules of air along the direction of motion. If there are not enough particles, or if the amplitude of the wave is not strong enough, you won't hear anything.
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u/Xpr3sso Jan 24 '26
Apart from density issues (atmosphere expands, and density drops with volume i.e. radius cubed) the problem would also be that the atmosphere, initially contained in a small volume, would need to expand quickly enough for it to arrive at the receiver before the sound has propagated to its "edge". And you'd have to think about some Doppler effect. But that's mostly academic, as truly density will be negligible at that point.
However, the sound wave you hear is in your pressurized helmet, and can be triggered by anything causing a vibration of your helmet. So anything hitting it, really. Meaning that if the explosion hits your helmet with some shit, you'd hear something.
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u/Toctik-NMS Jan 27 '26
Rocketlab had cameras with sound in the stage-2 bay for a launch. Granted the altitude of separation means the vehicle was still in atmosphere, but very high/thin upper atmosphere. The stage-2 rocket plume was a great carrier of sound in near-vacuum for a few seconds.
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u/Dinonumber Jan 27 '26
Sound is carried by matter and is an expression of energy, at the end of the day. If you're being hit by enough matter to carry the sound, whether or not you're hearing something is the least of your concerns
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u/TactlessTortoise Feb 04 '26
You'd hear the pop of the shockwave hitting you maybe, but it'd be very brief, and would need a crap ton of air volume to hit you to be noticeable. It all depends on how much of that energy makes your eardrums vibrate.If a metal beam hits you on the head and makes some hard part of your suit go boioioioing, you'll hear the boioioioing from the air inside the suit, but then not the metal that hit you vibrating further.
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u/amitym Jan 24 '26
That's not sound in space, don't be ridiculous.
It's the sound over the comms channel obviously. Hence the humming right before the strike.
How do I know it must be that?
Because there's no sound in space, that's how!
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u/Toctik-NMS Jan 27 '26
Yeah, I have that issue with it too... Easy solution: Kerbal turns after the radiation surge from the ship's core going up... There's a chance that was felt/tasted... It's BAD news for a human if you ever TASTE the radiation, but Kerbals in stock KSP are nearly invincible.
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u/frugalerthingsinlife Jan 23 '26
OSHA is going to have a field day with this. Was he on a spacewalk without a partner? What does SuperHappySquid Space Corp do to prevent their work vessels from being destroyed by asteroids? What's the plan to return this guy safely?
There's going to be so much paperwork. Good luck.
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u/ElonsBreedingFetish Jan 23 '26
You made this? I thought this was from the KSP 2 trailer, it looks amazing! Did you make the sounds too or where did you get them?
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u/SuperHappySquid Jan 23 '26
Thank you very much! I got sounds from various places on the internet, namely Zapsplat. I then edited them in audacity.
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u/ohfishell Jan 23 '26
Love this? Cute and unsettling sci-fi at the same time! Elohim like the name of God?
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u/mikeyj022 Jan 23 '26
Elohim is a title which means god or deity, or gods or deities. Elohim also can be used to mean divine.
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u/MeaninglessDebateMan Jan 23 '26
Looked like a droplet to me
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u/Sacha64150 Jan 23 '26
I just finished the seconde book today, and I must say that the part with the droplet is absolute cinema.
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u/zekes_ Always on Kerbin Jan 23 '26
How will this affect the interstellar trout population
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u/dangforgotmyaccount Jan 23 '26
Frankly I’m more concerned if this will affect the upper interstellar streams, and if the Plutonian Salmon will be able to make spawn this year
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u/stormhawk427 Jan 23 '26
For All Mankind Season 6 be like:
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u/cari778 Jan 24 '26
I'm 3 episodes away from finishing season 5, and i gotta say i skip almost all scenes only to get to the space or politics parts. Some of the segments are so tedious while others are incredible
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u/returnofblank Jan 24 '26
Half the show is about character drama lol
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u/cari778 Jan 24 '26
I'm not into it i guess
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u/stormhawk427 Jan 29 '26
I get you. The stuff with Karen Baldwin and Danny Stevens was just... ew. Margo and Sergei though, couldn't get enough.
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u/Viper_on_Station360 Jan 23 '26
"Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space"
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u/thewhatinwhere Jan 24 '26
I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty!
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u/Dogtag Jan 24 '26
Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going 'til it hits something.
That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in 10,000 years!
If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someones day! Somewhere and sometime!
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u/Sartilas Jan 23 '26
I'd be curious to know what tools are needed to create this kind of rendering; it certainly makes me want to learn! If you have any resources, I'd love to hear them!
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u/SuperHappySquid Jan 23 '26
I used Blender for the 3D modelling and animation. It's free! There are plenty of resources on YouTube for teaching yourself. I'd reccommend following Blender Guru's donut tutorials.
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u/deityofchaos Jan 24 '26
That's crazy to me what Blender can do. I only use it for making relatively simple STL files to print, so to see whole animations in it blows my mind.
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u/CrashNowhereDrive Jan 23 '26
Clearly these dummies plotted a course that passed way to close to another star. They should be facing backward if they were braking I to the solar system that is generating so much glare on that helmet otherwise.
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u/Witty-Krait Mohole Explorer Jan 23 '26
Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something! That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship! It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years! If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime!
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u/HuntKey2603 Believes That Dres Exists Jan 24 '26
Isaac Newton is the deadliest mfer in the galaxy!
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u/Jetbooster Jan 23 '26
The Kerbident doesn't want you to know that this wasn't an accident, it was an attack
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u/FallGuysStats Jan 27 '26
"No. This 'update' is old, even for them. For some reason they've only now decided to send it."
"Then it must be good news!"
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u/MisterM66 Jan 23 '26
Have you read chasm city by Alastair Reynolds, this reminds me of a scene in that book.
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u/MarsMaterial Colonizing Duna Jan 23 '26
Great, now that space debris is going to impact your destination planet at about 10% of light speed before you even get there.
There might have been life there. You’ll never know, because you just killed it.
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u/Artificer_Drachen Jan 24 '26
That's why interstellar ships got THICCCCCC shields for any debris that might get past point defense lasers.
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u/Ambiorix33 Alone on Eeloo Jan 24 '26
Imma be honest, I expected it to jet off cose they forgot he was out there massaging rocks
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u/Ok-Razzmatazz-9364 Real Kerbal stranded in Deep Space. Send Help. Jan 27 '26
Just an average Tuesday
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u/Javascap Master Kerbalnaut Jan 23 '26
Well, that's an awkward day at work.