Posted on 08/13/2005 10:50:38 AM PDT by drlevy88
FORGET dangers from giant meteors: Earth is facing another threat from outer space. Scientists have come to the conclusion that two mysterious explosions in the 1990s were caused by bizarre cosmic missiles.
The two objects were picked up by earthquake detectors as they tore through Earth at up to 900,000 mph. According to scientists, the most plausible explanation is that they were "strangelets", clumps of matter that have so far defied detection but whose existence was posited 20 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The U.K. Telegraph is such a credible source on these matters.
What happens to mass when an object travels at the speed of light?
Well Well Well, guess we don't have to worry about global warming after all.
These things would be great for practical jokes! Drop a tiny strangelet in a wallet sitting on the street. Watch the dummies try to pick it up! Or NASCAR! Slip on in your opponent's tire! Watch him try to get over 3 MPH!
Mass.
A meteor weighing several tons would be a catastrophe...yet this isn't? It seems it would produce the same result as a bullet passing through an object, leaving a MUCH bigger hole where it exits....very strange...
Except that the cross-section is so tiny. In bullets, for example, even for the same mass and velocity, a higher-caliber (i.e. "fatter") bullet will do more damage than a low-caliber ("skinny") bullet. In the extreme case, imagine a "bullet" which has the mass and velocity of a .45 caliber round, but the shape is like a very thin, very long metal rod. It'll pass through you like a fast needle, doing very little damage outside of the small hole it makes, and most of the energy/momentum of the projectile will just "pass through" your body and keep flying out on the other side -- the amount of energy imparted to the body itself will be much smaller, compared to the effect of a bullet which "mushrooms" to a fatter diameter, like a hollowpoint bullet.
These "stranglets", if they exist, have a lot of mass, but are so very tiny in size that they interact with a lot less of the Earth's material on their way through, compared to a "fat" asteroid of the same mass.
Light is 186,000 miles/second, or 669,600,000 mph.
A trip to White Castle, no doubt, brought that on.
Are we just gonna sit here yappin' like old ladies, or are we gonna do something about it?
hugh and series ping
No it isn't. The speed of light in mph is 670,616,629.
900,000 mph is only 0.13% of the speed of light.
Ok. Then we are safe. :-)
Good news! Something to kill us fast so we don't have to die a horrible slow death due to global warming.
Umm, light travels 186,000 miles per second, thats 669,600,000 mph
'course if you win this bet there might be a problem collecting because...because We'll all be DOOOOMED!!
I don't think so; I didn't remember what light speed is but I googled it up and got 186,282 miles per second. Times sixty seconds that's 1,117,692 mile a minute; times sixty more is a number I can't even visualize, 67,061,520 miles per hour.
Lightning.
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