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Gun Play: Inside Look at the Outer Planets
Space.com ^ | 6/7/05 | Leonard David

Posted on 06/07/2005 9:01:14 AM PDT by nuke rocketeer

Scientists at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico have accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second. The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s “Z Machine” – not only the fastest gun in the West, but in the world, too.

The Z Machine is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 kilometers per second that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the Sun. That’s 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravitational field.

The ultra-tiny aluminum plates, just 850 microns thick, are accelerated at 10-to-the-10th Gs (force of Earth’s gravity). Doing so without vaporizing the plates lies in the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse that drives the flight.

Z’s hurled plates strike a target after traveling only five millimeters. The impact generates a shock wave -- in some cases, reaching 15 million times atmospheric pressure -- that passes through the target material. The waves are so powerful that they turn solids into liquids, liquids into gases, and gases into plasmas in the same way that heat melts ice to water or boils water into steam.

One purpose of these very rapid flights is to help understand the extreme conditions found within the interiors of giant planets in our solar system. By creating states of matter extremely difficult to achieve on Earth, the flyer plates provide hard data to astrophysicists speculating on the structure and even the formation of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

Didier Saumon, an astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, noted that the internal structures of Jupiter and Saturn are composed mostly of hydrogen. So knowing its equation of state -- how hydrogen and its isotopes behave at pressures from one to 50 million atmospheres -- is highly relevant to how scientists infer the interior properties of these planets.

An upgrade of the Z Machine is planned for next year and is expected to achieve higher plate velocities.


TOPICS: Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: planetaryscience; railguns; sdi
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To: nuke rocketeer

We must ban the z-machine right now. thinkwhat could happen if a child found one in their parents bedroom and shot a friend? Also this could become the weapon of choice for terrorists. If we can save only one child it would be worth it.


21 posted on 06/07/2005 10:14:38 AM PDT by Big Mack (I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain TO EAT VEGETABLES!)
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To: nuke rocketeer

The U.S. Navy is working on a railgun or coil gun for its new DDX class of destroyers.


22 posted on 06/07/2005 10:17:02 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
It sounds like the flattest shooting prairie dog rifle I have heard of.

Got to get one !

23 posted on 06/07/2005 10:25:41 AM PDT by TYVets (God so loved the world he didn't send a committee)
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To: TYVets

"It sounds like the flattest shooting prairie dog rifle I have heard of."

But you have to be no more than five millimeters from the varmint.


24 posted on 06/07/2005 10:28:42 AM PDT by BeHoldAPaleHorse
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

The bullet is Al and nearly 1 mm thick - it would probably still leave a mark after 6 mm - and maybe even 1 or 10 m.


25 posted on 06/07/2005 10:50:22 AM PDT by coloradan (Hence, etc.)
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To: coloradan
coloradan said: "If the acceleration is constant, the average velocity is half the total velocity,..."

Ten to the tenth g is a lot. I would guess that the maximum acceleration occurs quite near the end of the interval; more like an acceleration pulse. I don't know the mechanism, but a such a non-linear acceleration might stretch the time out a bit.

26 posted on 06/07/2005 11:30:40 AM PDT by William Tell
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To: William Tell

Yes it would, but "under a second" is still a gross understatement.


27 posted on 06/07/2005 12:11:51 PM PDT by coloradan (Hence, etc.)
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