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To: from occupied ga

Yes, but the mass of vapor/plasma/tiny particles would probably be handled by the upper atmosphere then, akin to solar flares. That would probably factor into the distance calculation.

I forget the author off hand, but there is a great series, Star Marines, where we strike a heavy blow against a ridiculous foe (essentially responsible for the Fermi paradox in our Galaxy) by transiting an older sub light starship through a gate into a system containing one of their major hubs. The cargo modules contain 50,000 tons of sand mined from Mars which is dispersed en route after the transit. The author did a great job describing the theoretical results.

That series was one of the best Sci Fi works I’d read in a while.


128 posted on 08/15/2016 6:03:49 AM PDT by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: Axenolith
Yes, but the mass of vapor/plasma/tiny particles would probably be handled by the upper atmosphere then, akin to solar flares

Really depends on how diffuse. Once you get up to even orbital speeds the material strength of what you hit (of what hits you) doesn't really matter for example just at orbital speeds the damage from tiny things is surprising. Now if you multiply that speed by 50, you multiply the energy by 2500; you can imagine what the result would be

If you get up to relativistic speeds you approach 50% of the E = MC2 formula. A large meteorite going at orbital speed supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs, an object 1/10,000th the mass would only have to be going 100 times as fast to release the same amount of energy (energy goes up as the square of the velocity) and it wouldn't matter if it were a cloud of gas or a solid object. And then there's the density. The solar wind which you mentioned does indeed go really fast, but its density is so low currently around 3 particles /cc that it doesn't penetrate or do any damage. 100 kg of something like carbon would have to be uniformly dissipated into 400,000,000,000 cubic miles to reach the same low density of the solar wind

130 posted on 08/15/2016 6:49:16 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: Axenolith; from occupied ga

400,000,000,000 cubic miles is a sphere 9141 miles in diameter ( I had to calculate it - smaller than I expected.)


134 posted on 08/15/2016 12:00:26 PM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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