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To: Ikeon

It’s nowhere even remotely close to affect the moon’s orbit any more than a rocket crashing back to earth could affect the earth’s orbit around the sun. Some back of the envelope approximate numbers - mass of moon is 7x10^22 kg. Orbital radius is 380,000 km. Orbital period is 29 days. With those numbers we can calculate the moons speed as 2xpix380000x1000 meters divided by 29x24x3600 seconds. This gives 960 meters per second. The kinetic energy is 1/2 x mass x speed squared, which gives 3.3x10^28 Joules, or in gigajoules as quoted in the article, 3.3x10^19 GJ. This is greater than the impact energy by a factor of something like 30 quintillion. It will have absolutely no measureable effect on the moon’s orbit.


84 posted on 07/31/2026 10:57:41 AM PDT by stremba
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To: stremba

Correction - the orbital energy of the moon is greater than the impact energy by a factor of about 3 quintillion, not 30 quintillion. Same conclusion, though - no measurable effect.


85 posted on 07/31/2026 11:00:06 AM PDT by stremba
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To: stremba

Thank you for that reassuring post. Im still staying in my basement another 6 months at the minimum..can’t be too careful. 😉


86 posted on 07/31/2026 2:49:49 PM PDT by Ikeon (David never prayed for Goliath, nope, he picked up a rock and hit him in the head. Job over.)
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