Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Can a planet hit by a meteor shatter into two pieces? Alternately, if not a meteor, an advanced interstellar weapon?

+0
−0

First, is it possible for a planet hit be a meteor to shatter into two pieces?. Then, can the two pieces remain in orbit? Especially, can they develop a sort of co-orbit around each other?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/14673. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

1 answer

+0
−0

I like TimB's answer discussing the Giant Impact Hypothesis. I see that in a comment on his answer, you wrote

Thank you! I actually had this Moon origin theory in mind. But I'm actually wondering about an inhabited planet, in the immediate run. Is there any possibility of survivors, say, after the shattering? For a while, at least? Any idea?

The answer is most certainly no. I'd like to go in-depth as to why that won't be happening.

In an answer to one of my questions, Serban Tanasa discussed the conditions of impacts. He cited Stewart et al. (2015) (which cites an earlier work by the three, Stewart et al. (2014), giving the formula for the energy released in an impact, $Q_S$, as $$Q_S=Q_R(1+M_p/M_t)(1-b) \tag{1}$$ $Q_R$ is calculated as $$Q_R=\frac{0.5 \mu V^2}{M_p+M_t} \tag{2}$$ In this latter paper, they mention that for grazing impacts, $b>\frac{R_t}{R_t+R_p}$, so we'll assume here that $b<\frac{R_t}{R_t+R_p}$.

You mentioned a meteor. A meteor will do next to no damage to a planet. In this case, $R_p \ll R_t$, so we're left with $b<1$. To do some real damage - enough to do what you want - we need $R_t \approx R_p$. So $b<\frac{1}{2}$. We can, though, say that the projectile isn't too massive. We'll toe the line and have $b=\frac{1}{2}$.

Assuming the densities are the same, $R_p \approx R_t \to M_p \approx M_t$. We now have $$Q_S=Q_R(1+1)\left(1-\frac{1}{2}\right) \to Q_S=Q_R$$ This means that $$Q_S=\frac{1}{4} \mu V^2 \tag{3}$$ $\mu$, the reduced mass, is $$\mu=\frac{M_pM_t}{M_p+M_t}$$ Assuming both bodies are Earth-like, this means that $$\mu=2.985 \times 10^{24}$$ It doesn't matter what $V$ is. Looking at one of the graphs, I see that whatever $V$ is, $Q_S$ is going to be off the charts:

We're all going to die.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »