i never saw armageddon, but

[chupe666]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/02/asteroid.reut/index.html

 

[FuSoYa]

can someone please explain to me how a simple rock can have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima bombs? I mean, there is no explosive material in the asteroid, right? The impact alone could be that powerful? I don't get it.

 

[FrostGiant]

It's not the explosion but the shockwave caused by the explosion/impact I believe. That's really what does the most damage, not the fire or anything like that but the shockwave.

 

[xfer]

the Hiroshima bomb wasn't really that big a deal.

 

[FuSoYa]

so it knocks things over sideways?

 

[FrostGiant]

And tips turtles on their backs.

 

[minxnim]

here's an example of impact physics:
http://sherpa.sandia.gov/planet-impact/asteroid/

 

[xfer]

explosives aren't as important as the mass and speed (velocity?) of the missile. for example, the US used concrete bombs against iraq during Desert Fox and they worked just fine. all they were were bomb casings filled with concrete, no explosive material at all; being dropped into a building from a high altitude, though, they usually hit it with enough force to totally level it.


also, that's why one of the deadliest available weapons to the US military are the bullets they use in machine guns (like the big machine gun attached to the nose of an Apache attack helicopter). the bullets are made of depleted uranium, which is not explosive, but which is much massier than iron or lead. (i think depleted uranium also ignites when it's exposed to air and/or friction, too? so not only do you have super-destructive, armor-piercing bullets that fire a thousand times per minute, but they set tanks and shit on fire, too).

 

[lizard]

so let's scrap the billion dollar weapons systems and build ourselves an arsenal of trebuchets.

 

[FrostGiant]

Well, you need the explosion (in the really big bombs) to create the necessary concusion to do some real damage.