Re: psychoceramics: Archimedes Plutonium horning in on Abian

[Robin Stephenson <robin @ gbhap.com>]

				[...]
AP> the Moon is given a asteroid collision that it makes a soft
AP> landing touch with our Pacific Ocean. Of course all of the
AP> people of the pacific region are evacuated.

Oh, that's OK then.  For a minute I thought that this man was
completely and utterly barking mad.  I sincerely hope no-one ever
tries to dock the moon with the Earth, however `softly' they think
they can do it...  Does anyone on the list know enough astrophysics to
calculate what would happen if anyone tried dropping the moon from
orbit?  I've done a `boe' calculation (below) of the kinetic energy
transfer involved in a 1km/year impact, but I reckon there's a good
chance it's wrong, and I'm not taking any other factors into account
(like the fact that the blasted thing is going to reenter at about a
bazillion miles an hour and kill everyone on the planet, no mistake).
Perhaps this is how the dinosaurs died?
  Using the 1km/year velocity (1000/(365.25*24*60*60)=3.17*10^-5m/s)
that AP mentions earlier and a mass of, um let's see, about 6*10^24kg,
stopping the moon would release around 0.5*6*10^24*(3.17*10^-5)^2 J,
or 3*10^15J.  Hmm, how many megatons would that be, I wonder?  Let's
see, 1kt is about 4.186*10^12J, so that would be um 700 kilotons.  I'm
surprised it's so small, actually -- perhaps I've made a mistake
somewhere.

AP> --  The end result is that the Moon and Earth forms a new Earth,
AP> call it Earth2 and is a dumbbell shaped Earth. The new Moon

	 [I assume he means `Earth2' when he says `new Moon']

AP> will be covered with water by suction and the new Moon will by
AP> suction have a atmosphere.

By *suction*?  *SUCTION*?  The mind boggles.

-- 
 Robin Stephenson
 Temporarily Relieves Nasal Congestion