What will happen if a FTL ship hits Earth?

[Seret]

Well, it's hard to say how much of the journey would be acceleration and deceleration, since nobody knows how to build one. I agree that the original statement of "collecting everything is passes through" wasn't accurate though. Bottom line is that it seems likely it would be zapping you with some unpleasant stuff if you're standing in the wrong place. My understanding of it was that there's actually no upper bound to how much energy it could dump on the destination, if that's true it could be weaponised.

[K^2]

Well, there is certainly an upper bound. Energy is still conserved. And even if it ends up "borrowing" vacuum energy, there is still a limit. But it could be a lot and unpleasant, certainly.

As for duration of acceleration, that goes into the logistics curve, and is one of the design parameters. This should just be the time required to fully energize the bubble, and from all angles, this seems to be something we want to be short rather than long. I'm sure there would be technical limitations, but most of the trip should be in cruise.

Of course, that's just for normal voyage. If it ends up slamming into atmosphere, and if I'm reading that paper right, it's going to turn into a death ray. Again, I can't tell what sort of intensity that will have, but you're probably right about weaponizing it. What's better than a nuke? A nuke that gets to destination before you even have a chance to detect a launch.

[Seret]

Well, there is certainly an upper bound. Energy is still conserved. And even if it ends up "borrowing" vacuum energy, there is still a limit. But it could be a lot and unpleasant, certainly.

I meant that (if I'm understanding all this correctly) for any given warp drive ship, there's nothing in the mechanism described that prevents it sucking up as much energy as it can find. Obviously there will still be a practical limit.

[Wahgineer]

From what I've read and heard, the bubble effectively seals the ship off from our universe, creating and indestructible barrier. Also, since the ship itself is experiencing no acceleration, it would pop out off the warp bubble at the speed it created the warp bubble, meaning it may very well enter the Earth's atmosphere at Mach 1.5. But the ship is more likely to pass through the Earth as if it didn't exist, since the indestructible barrier between the ship and the rest of the universe would just plow through everything. What you would end up with is a nice little neat hole through the center of the Earth, as well as a lot of cataclysmic events due to a star ship warp bubble passing through at super luminal speeds.

[K^2]

From what I've read and heard, the bubble effectively seals the ship off from our universe, creating and indestructible barrier.

That's not exactly right. The bubble is neither indestructible nor impermeable. Matter will pass through it, but anything passing through the bubble will be shredded into plasma by the extreme tidal forces. Not unlike falling into a black hole. A sufficiently high flow of matter will, furthermore, destabilize the bubble, causing it to collapse. We've been having a bit of a debate on what's "sufficiently high", but hitting Earth would definitely do it for any plausible warp drive. Most likely, bubble will collapse in upper atmosphere. And yes, that will release the ship at a potentially very survivable speed, but it will also release a lot of radiation, so it'd be like being dropped into the middle of a nuclear explosion. Again, we haven't really established whether it's going to be a small nuclear explosion or a very large one, but it will matter little if you're right in the middle of it.

[1of6Billion]

What happens if we're hit by a fist-sized ball of iron going at similar velocities to the Oh-My-God-Particle?

Off course there is, kind of, an xkcd about that. The first What-If. About a Relatavistic Baseball.

Edited January 16, 2014 by 1of6Billion

[1of6Billion]

I only see problems with particles encountered during bubble acceleration and deceleration. During most of the voyage, particles pass right through without change in energy, according to this paper.

Hitting earth decelerates you, no matter how fast you travel.

[K^2]

Hitting earth decelerates you, no matter how fast you travel.

Not how warp drives work.

[1of6Billion]

Not how warp drives work.

Well, if you don't hit earth, because you have a warp drive, there is no problem anyway

[K^2]

Except for bubble destabilization and everything that follows. Haven't you been paying attention?

[meve12]

So the warp bubble hits Earth, what damage could that conceivably cause?

Theoretical problem with the Drive is that it picks up all the interstellar hydrogen/other particles it comes across. If the drive collapses as soon as it hits atmosphere, it'll dump all of that in every which direction.

Think a localized supernova, if it came from another star without stopping.

[K^2]

Theoretical problem with the Drive is that it picks up all the interstellar hydrogen/other particles it comes across.

We've covered this on the previous page. It shouldn't pick up particles during cruise. Only during acceleration/deceleration.

[AnyKey]

It either A) goes right on threw the earth as if its not even there, or it atomizes earth or ship in a nanosecond, or C) somewhere in between, it all depends upon the specifics of a theoretical drive system that is based upon theoretical type of matter.

So correct answers is D, not enough information

[palioxis1248]

Read from Stephen Baxter's Ark that someone came up with the idea that the warp bubble needn't be very big. About the size of a neutrino would do. If that's the case then if such a bubble destabilised it would probably at most release Tsar-Bomba levels of energy.

[Kerbin Von Braun]

http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-reveals-latest-warp-drive-ship-designs

about 56 minutes in or slightly before he discusses what happens when the warp bubble hits mass, whether its a dust mote or a planet the process is the same, the results can be spectacularly different however XD

Edited June 12, 2014 by Kerbin Von Braun
clarity

[jwenting]

non-existent ship hits existing planet, planet annihilates the fictional ship in a puff of logic, nobody even notices.

[Derpotron]

So let's say that the warp bubble does not destabilize when in contact with matter, but actually pushes it away. Also, I think a ship carrying the drive would average about 70 metric tons, and that might be the lower end, because the drives aren't going to be pocket sized, nor will they be as light as a feather. If you throw in a moderate sized nuclear reactor (With shielding, of course) you get a pretty heavy ship.

Speed Of Ship = 10*299792458m/s = 2 997 924 580m/s (That is really, really fast)

Mass = 70 000kg

So we have that out of the way. Good, so now we can get onto the next part.

70 000*2 997 924 580 = 209 854 720 600 000N

So. This number is a little large.

The force this thing is packing is going to drill quite a large hole in any earth sized (Or less) planet, atmosphere or not. I think the atoms directly in this thing's way will fission, making the damage even worse.

We would all die. From the heat, force (Enough to very badly destabilize the planet's orbit and send half of it flying out of the solar system) and radiation. Sorry.

[Camacha]

Somehow the term ultra-9-11 comes to mind. I would be curious whether we actually test this on some remote object, or just wait for it to either go wrong or get abused.

[maltesh]

Speed Of Ship = 10*299792458m/s = 2 997 924 580m/s (That is really, really fast)

Mass = 70 000kg

So we have that out of the way. Good, so now we can get onto the next part.

70 000*2 997 924 580 = 209 854 720 600 000N

So. This number is a little large.

You don't get force (Newtons) by multiplying Mass (kilograms) by Velocity (meters per second.)

Mass * Velocity = Classical Momentum (With the above units, kilogram-meters per second, or Newton-seconds)

And the classical momentum equation stops being a good approximation at far lower velocities than 10c.

[Derpotron]

Oops! My bad. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the feedback. Won't make the same mistake later on.

[Skyler4856]

So the warp bubble hits Earth, what damage could that conceivably cause?

Perhaps the radiation accumulated inside of the Warp Bubble, would be released, or more mass would be added to the bubble...