Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Don't forget that damage and megatons don't scale directly

Of course
Larry J — (archived)

While the diameter of a crater made from a 10 megaton impact won't be 10 times the diameter of a 1 megaton impact, the crater area will be considerably bigger. To use simple numbers, suppose a 1 MT impact created a crater with a radius of 1 unit. The area of that crater would be Pi units. Suppose a 10 MT impact caused a crater with an area of 10 Pi units. That would mean the radius of the crater is about 3.16 units.

I've seen various estimates that if this object hits, it'll release something on the order of 1600 to 2200 megatons of energy. Any way you slice it, that'll leave a mark. Also, keep in mind that the size of this object is merely an estimate based on assumptions about its reflectivity. I read this morning about an earlier object that was originally estimated at about 30 meters in diameter. Better observations found out that it was considerably bigger. Just as the damage from a given impact energy doesn't scale linerally, the impact energy of an object doesn't scale linerally with size. Doubling the size can increase the impact energy by a factor of 8, depending on the geometry.

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