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What Would Happen If Gilly Hit Kerbin?

CG_Kerbin

By CG_Kerbin
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KerikBalm

KerikBalm

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Unless it has a highly elliptical orbit and happens to intersect Kerbin at exactly Apoapsis. Trust me, I have a satellite in an orbit reaching from below moho to above Duna, and at Periapsis it's speed is over 16,000km/s but at apoapsis it only goes 120 m/s

I don't trust you.

I know that you can get really slow velocities at apoapsis... but how praytel, will you get something to hit Kerbin at apoapsis?

The only way the impact point can be around Kerbin apoapsis, is if the perapsis is below the surface of kerbin.

If you are talking about a sun centric orbit with an arbitrarily low velocity at AP, it could be 0 when it enters Kerbin's SOI, and it will fall to Kerbin and hit with a velocity of ~3.4 km/s

Or are you assuming Kerbin has no gravity whatsoever?

Either way, your argument holds no weight.

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cantab

cantab

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If you are talking about a sun centric orbit with an arbitrarily low velocity at AP, it could be 0 when it enters Kerbin's SOI, and it will fall to Kerbin and hit with a velocity of ~3.4 km/s
This. An incoming asteroid is in the reverse situation to an escaping object. Indeed if Kerbin was a point mass the asteroid would fly past and escape again. Now if an object isn't doing more than escape velocity at periapsis it won't escape, and since orbits are reversible an object that has come in can't be doing less than escape velocity at periapsis, which for an impactor is at or below the surface.

There's a little wrinkle in KSP in that an object can be in an elliptical orbit that enters and leaves the SOI, rather than a "true" escape trajectory, but the margin for that is only a few dozen m/s or so.

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Renegrade

Renegrade

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Well, regarding this slow-ap business, if Gilly transferred up from Eve's orbit (I think this is a reasonable assumption, given that's where it normally is~), it would be overtaken by Kerbin at about 714.5 m/sec.

I'm sort of getting the impression that the speed of impact would be something on the order of (very approximately) sqrt(714.5^2 + 3431.23^2) or 3504.8 -- let's say 3500 since there's quite a few assumptions going on there (it's ignoring any differences in the planar orientation, assuming the transfer is from exactly Eve's SMA to exactly Kerbin's SMA, that Gilly will graze Kerbin's surface at alt=0 exactly, and fudging v(inf)~)

Does that sound reasonable?

(Also, who put engines on Gilly?)

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CG_Kerbin

CG_Kerbin

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Gilly your drunk. Go home.

Priceless.

Thank you :D glad to see you liked it

- - - Updated - - -

Kerbin would file a restraining order?

XD I laughed so hard thank you

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Well, regarding this slow-ap business, if Gilly transferred up from Eve's orbit (I think this is a reasonable assumption, given that's where it normally is~), it would be overtaken by Kerbin at about 714.5 m/sec.

I'm sort of getting the impression that the speed of impact would be something on the order of (very approximately) sqrt(714.5^2 + 3431.23^2) or 3504.8 -- let's say 3500 since there's quite a few assumptions going on there (it's ignoring any differences in the planar orientation, assuming the transfer is from exactly Eve's SMA to exactly Kerbin's SMA, that Gilly will graze Kerbin's surface at alt=0 exactly, and fudging v(inf)~)

Does that sound reasonable?

(Also, who put engines on Gilly?)

Love all you guys science

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CG_Kerbin

CG_Kerbin

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That thingy is asking for diameter, FYI, Gilly is 13km in *radius*.

It's more than twice the (predicted) diameter of the Chicxulub crater's impactor. :S

I'm guessing that's the dinosaur one? Because if so that's one big creator

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If you don't ignore the weird aero model, that bottom 5,000m of the atmosphere slows everything down a lot.

What's the weird aero model? Never heard of that

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sedativechunk

sedativechunk

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Here is a good video of what would happen if an asteroid hit Earth that is 500km in size:

http://www.wimp.com/lifescare/

In reality speaking in game physics or not, if Gilly hit Kerbin the results would most likely be catastrophic. First off, Kerbin's orbit would probably shift slightly, the weather in unaffected parts would be come sporadic. Massive debris and dust storms would surround the entire planet from the blast. Seismic tremors from the impact would probably last for weeks beyond the initial impact after disturbing all of the possible shifting land masses that existed on Kerbin. Massive chunks of the planet would be tossed into space and could possibly form a second moon around Kerbin. And as the video shows, life on the planet would probably become hell. Fire would rain across the entire planet, no life would survive, even the space stations and satellites would probably get obliterated by debris tossed in space.

It would take tens of millions of years for the impact to subside. If the iron core that probably protects kerbin was destroyed in some way, then chances are kerbin will never be a habitable planet again despite it's position in the goldilocks zone. It is possibly Gilly and Kerbins remains would make a second or even third moon around the planet with all of the debris, some evidence says this is where our real moon came from now. In terms of the Kerbal universe, they would have to relocate their population to Laythe or die trying.

As that video says, there is evidence this happened on Earth at least 6 times already, and this doesn't include any possible impact craters that could remain on the ocean floors on our planet. Asteroids are scary business, they pose a bigger threat to humanity than anything. Something the size of Gilly would be awful. Even an asteroid only 1 mile in size poses a threat to us.

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CG_Kerbin

CG_Kerbin

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So I'm curious, would it be possible to put Minmus in orbit around the Mun? (Or any other moon, really). Or are they on rails?
yes with hyper edit it's rather easy! For instance I made every planet and moon orbit round kerbin its very cool to see like 20 moons go past! :D I can send you the video if you want?
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Deadpangod3

Deadpangod3

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Wrong scale. As mentioned, even Gilly is so massive that the stock parts in feasible quantities would have a negligible effect on its orbit.

someone would figure out a way...

someone...

someone would probably use a kraken drive and/or spend half their life shipping fuel to said planet to deorbit it, because boredom :P

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