Is it possible to pass through a planet? (Many assumptions ahead)

[Xannari Ferrows]

So, a question came up in my head today that I haven't been able to accurately answer, and is a pretty far-fetched question.

First of all, rules. On this topic, we will ignore the speed of light being the cosmic speed limit. We will also be ignoring things such as gravitational tidal effects and spaghetiffication.

Now, here's the question: If an object were travelling fast enough.. in fact, so fast, that the atoms don't even have time to recognize and react to one another, could passing through a solid body of matter be possible? I mean, it makes sense. The atoms in a body of matter never touch each other. They can get ever so close, but the repulsive forces of their own power and magnetic properties are enough to keep them apart. If you were to keep the atoms in one body of matter from reacting with the atoms in another body, theoretically they should be able to pass through each other without even interacting at all.

In fact, you could make a valid comparison by using a very old, fairly sparse theory. Compare this to a hyperbolic orbit while moving at plex-warp speeds, but not in our space. Say, you were to move the speed of light in Verteron space (A theory of my own suggestion that the space we live in is small, and we can gain access to a bigger space, effectively being able to move much greater distances without moving any faster. Still under development, and far beyond our capability to test it.)

Anyway, moving the speed of light here could move you vaster distances without compressing space, moving faster, but still interacting with our space.

If moving fast enough, indeed, can you pass through a planet?

Does this make sense to anyone else, or am I missing something? Keep in mind, we are not here to discuss why this wouldn't be possible. Just would it happen if it could.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Xannari Ferrows

[No one]

I don't understand quantum physics/general relativity/your magicalness which allows FTL stuff, but I'm pretty sure that the answer is a massive explosion.

[TheGatesofLogic]

Well, the problem here is relativity, it limits the passing period in exchange for accelerating the rate at which the interactions proceed (I think). So you end up with a major interaction regardless of how fast you go (maybe).

[JUDUFU]

https://what-if.xkcd.com/20/

[WestAir]

I imagine that if you're going so fast that from your perspective it takes less than a minute to travel from Earth to the nearest Galaxy in the observable Universe, and at this speed you "fly into" Earth - It's safe to say that you'll just go through it. You might blow the Earth up and set fire to Venus and Mars in the process, but the planet certainly won't stop you.

[Vanamonde]

On the scale of atoms and sub-atomic particles, things happen far more quickly than the time scales we are used to. I don't believe there is any speed at which the particles would not have time to interact with each other, and by "interact" I mean, KA-BOOM!

[Ralathon]

The main reason collision events are happening is because of the EM fields of atoms interacting. EM fields aren't discrete processes, no matter how fast you are going you'll still feel them. So no, no matter how fast you're going you'll still hit the earth.

Provided you are moving fast enough you can emerge on the other side as an incandescent cloud of plasma, but I'm fairly sure that's not what you're aiming for here.

[KSK]

Uh, the atoms in solids do touch - or at least their electrons interact - otherwise you wouldn't have a solid. The nuclei of those atoms don't come into contact though, unless they happen to be found in the core of a star or a fusion reactor. So the nuclei in the atoms in your body might get quite a long way through the planet, but even then most of them would scatter and be stopped before they got out the other side.

The nearest real-world version of what you're proposing that I can think of, would be neutrinos. Those interact with matter via the weak force (the name says it all), rather than the electromagnetic force, so they do pass through very large amounts of matter (including planets) without stopping.

Edited October 23, 2014 by KSK

[magnemoe]

Did you pass trough an moon or planet in KSP using maximum warp?

Moving fast at 100.000x warp might let you pass trough an planet without interacting with it, say relative speed is 2km/s, with warp its 200.000 km/s or 4000 km every 50 ms who I believe is the sample rate, this is less than the diameter of kerbin and the warp reduction area around it, increasing speed will make it easier.

In real world it would not work well, hard to know if we did not have the lightspeed limit and you might be able to move so fast you would be able to pass trough however many of the atoms would interact and heat you to plasma or at least boiling, this would not be noticeable on the surface as you would interact loosely but you would pass trough dense rock for 12.000 km.

[YNM]

Something which I heard in my learnings around astronomy : anything that moves with the speed of light (or faster, maybe ) is called a light.

So, imagine a light going to pass Earth.

[lajoswinkler]

You'd never pass through Earth. The more speed you have, the more energy you deliver and it means larger temperature of the impact site. Therefore, more boom.

Oh and btw, it's "many hypotheses ahead". No theories here.

Edited October 23, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[Ralathon]

Something which I heard in my learnings around astronomy : anything that moves with the speed of light (or faster, maybe ) is called a light.

So, imagine a light going to pass Earth.

Anything that moves at the speed of light is massless. Photons are the only known massless particle that can exist as a free particle. But its very possible that there are other massless particles that travel freely at c.

[Bobnova]

Yes.

Neutrinos do it all the time.

If I remember correctly they have a 50/50 of making it through a light year of lead.

They don't even go c either.

Other stuff can if its going fast enough, it's just that there may not be much planet left behind afterwards

Sufficiently high energy photons ought to be able to, if you look at the progression of visible light to UV to Xray to gamma ray to high energy gamma etc.

Gravitons do, if they exist in the first place.

[cantab]

I can see four ways to do this:

An object that doesn't interact with normal matter much can fly straight through with no impact to object or Earth. Neutrinos, dark matter, micro black holes, etc.

An object that's travelling blazing fast can punch through but will heavily damage the object and potentially the Earth. xkcd's near-light-speed diamond.

An object that's much denser than the Earth will pass through like a thrown rock in air, with little damage to the object but potential damage to the Earth. Neutron star stuff would fit the bill here, as might a planetary mass black hole.

An object could quantum tunnel from one side of the Earth to the other, with no impact to object or Earth. Maybe anything stupidly cold could do this?

[Xannari Ferrows]

No one, Honestly I'm not sure if there is a more straightforward answer.

ThatGatesofLogic. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you brought up relativity. Are you meaning the Earth's orbital velocity and your speed are your reference frames? Because I'm taking Earth as a central reference frame, and moving relative to it at this ungodly speed.

WestAir... Well, that makes sense. Now that I think more about it, Earth's convection would be involved as well, but that stuff's too complicated for now.

Vanamonde, I'm still trying to find what that speed is. My closest guess right now is c(1.141636 x 10^360) That number seem familiar?

Really it's just an estimate.

Ralathon. I would imagine you would be interacting, but maybe I did misspeak a little. I was honestly referring to if they had time to effect each other so much that you would stop. I guess I said interacting and meant reacting. Sorry for that.

KSK. You can think of them like a repulsive magnet inside an attracting magnet. Bring another one in close, and it will stay a very close distance, but never touch. Sure, they are interacting, but they aren't touching, if by touching you mean coming in absolute contact.

Neutrinos are a valid comparison, but aren't tangential to what I'm referring to, as their interaction are enough to redirect their momentum. (Brownian motion, is it?)

Magnemoe. Ahh darn, ye caught me. Yes, that's how this question came to my mind. I started wondering about what the real world speed to do this would be. I do get what you mean about Kerbin, though. The game is constantly accounting for frame differences, when you can't do that in real life.

YNM. A photon (If that's what you mean) could pass into Earth, but not likely out. It would lose all of it's energy fairly fast actually.

Lajoswinkler, the reason an object gets hot is because the transferal of energy from one object to the next. I know I said we would be ignoring the light speed limit for now, but it would make sense to assume that this energy transferal happens slower than light, and rather at the speed of sound (As compression waves travel through solids at the speed of sound, so does energy). This reaction probably wouldn't happen fast enough to keep up with you. The end result in this scenario would be you produce enough kinetic energy to destroy the Earth, but I'm still not sure if that would be the case. (There is my theory of Verteron space, but I'll admit, I was out of it last night.)

Bobnova. I'm afraid the context and layout of your reply eludes me.

Cantab. I much approve of black holes. Oh right, the answer.

The first answer is very valid. A way of eluding the context of the question without breaking any rules. I'll do a quick review later to verify if any reactions are made, if any at all.

As for the second answer, I took a quick look at that page, and I don't see how that comparison is relevant to the question. Sure, it's about an object flying to the Earth at ridiculous speeds, but this question ignores that.

The third answer, A denser object would likely be able to pass through, but will cause masses of interactions in the process.

The last answer, Another valid answer. You could quantum tunnel to the other side while keeping the context of the question, but the scales and probabilities of that happening are so low, it probably wont even be worth discussing in the next lifetime (Not meaning to start anything about that.)

All in all, very good answers! It seems I have some work of my own to do, but I'll do that later.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Xannari Ferrows

[Skyler4856]

Assuming force propagates at a speed equal to or less than C, and assuming that you may travel faster than C, one may expect to see an effect not at all dissimilar to a super-sonic Doppler graph

With the rings being a following force

[TheGatesofLogic]

I was referring to relativistic forces, despite the period of time of the passing appearing to decrease due to spatial contraction coupled with relativistic dilation forces should act at a faster rate in accordance (IIRC). Also, as said before, electromagnetic forces are not discrete, so no matter how fast you travel through the planet there will still be SIGNIFICANT scattering.

After rereading a bit on relativistic forces I was in fact correct, passing time would be countered by a force proportional to the momentum of the object based on its relativistic mass over the invariant mass, which means that a high amount of interaction is essentially unavoidable. (Maybe)

Edited October 23, 2014 by TheGatesofLogic

[Xannari Ferrows]

TheGatesOfLogic. Ah, I see what your saying. I do understand that there are still interactions happening, and in turn scattering, but what I'm still looking for is how insignificant is can get. I'm trying not to sound rude, but there's on thing that comes into my head whenever I think about what you're saying.

Think of a hyperbolic orbit. The faster you move, the much less of an impact it has on your trajectory. I understand it still has an impact regardless of how faster you're moving, but I'm looking for the point in which you're moving so fast, it's negligible enough to not even account for. In turn, think of minimizing these changes to your matter string to a point where you practically don't change. Like I said, I understand that interactions will happen regardless.

I do get what you're saying, though. Truly. As for your point of dilation, that is still theoretical, and does not ignore a relative cosmic speed limit (A bit confusing word choice, but hopefully it still makes sense), so I'm sorry to say I cannot take that into account. I do hope you understand.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Xannari Ferrows

[KSK]

No - atoms in a solid touch. They form bonds, the distribution of electrons around the nuclei changes when they do so. Try a quick Wikipedia search for molecular orbital theory.

Consider the very simplest case of two hydrogen atoms. Radius of a hydrogen atom is 53 pm (Google for 'hydrogen atom radius). Bond length of the H2 molecule is 74 pm (or 0.74 A) - in other words, considerably less than the sum of the two atomic radii. You can't think of a hydrogen molecule as two discrete hydrogen atoms that are almost but not quite touching.

The same goes for atoms in a solid. Treating a solid as a set of close packed spheres is a nice picture, and a helpful one for visualizing solid structure, but a picture is all it is.

Back to the question. Apparently, the Planck time, is the smallest possible unit of time, in that, for events occurring less than one Planck Time apart, no change can be measured or detected. So if you could hurl yourself at a planet fast enough to pass through it in one Planck Time, you would theoretically pass through it unaltered.

Unfortunately, the Planck Time is also defined as the length of time it takes a photon to travel one Planck length - and a Planck Length is a massive 1.6x10 -35 m. So for that to work, you would need to be travelling at around 10 to the power of 42 times the speed of light. So yeah, if you completely ignore relativity it might work. In the real world - not a hope.

Incidentally - quantum tunneling is also a *very* distance dependent effect. The chance of tunneling more than a few nanometres is vanishingly small.

Edited October 24, 2014 by KSK

[lajoswinkler]

Even if you went at light speed (ignoring the relativistic distortions of everything), you're too slow to be faster than the electrical interactions between atoms.

Result - big bada boom.

[ZetaX]

Not only EM, the nuclear forces will also have something to say.

[lajoswinkler]

It could be calculated. The temperatures between the surface and impactor would grow to incredible values, true...

[cantab]

If all else fails, there's always the prosaic approach of a really big drill

[ZetaX]

Which won't work.

[zarakon]

Megaman certainly isn't an easy game, but it's orders of magnitude away from the old Ninja Gaiden games