Re:Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
by avar on Saturday July 06, 2019 @02:09AM
(#20368231)
You said:
> That seems unlikely, as that requires like 11km/s which is more than the sum of the two velocities[...]
Isn't the first problem here that you're assuming a spherical cow in a vacuum physics problem? Two satellites colliding aren't two indivisible pebbles colliding.
They're going to pulverize on impact, and some of the now-expanding debris cloud might even contain combustibles the satellites were carrying.
The debris also won't only collide once, there'll be a series of rapidly occurring re-collisions. Some of those might impart extra velocity on some of the expanding debris.
> That seems unlikely, as that requires like 11km/s which is more than the sum of the two velocities[...]
Isn't the first problem here that you're assuming a spherical cow in a vacuum physics problem? Two satellites colliding aren't two indivisible pebbles colliding.
They're going to pulverize on impact, and some of the now-expanding debris cloud might even contain combustibles the satellites were carrying.
The debris also won't only collide once, there'll be a series of rapidly occurring re-collisions. Some of those might impart extra velocity on some of the expanding debris.