293 m/s is 649 mph! The heat of collision would be intense and localized for planetary sized bodies. The 8.6 J/g, if correct, is not evenly distributed. In the area of contact, billions of tons of material would be heated to incandesence.
Jeff ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horace Heffner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2005 8:52 AM Subject: Re: anomalies on Iapidus > V = (2 G M/(R))^0.5 > V = (2 G (4.7x10^20 kg)/(730 km))^0.5 > V = 293 m/s > > So the energy E converted to heat is: > > E = 2 * .5 m*V^2 = (4.7x10^20 kg)(293 m/s)^2 = 4x10^25 J > > Thus the heat per gram H is: > > H = E/m = (4x10^25 J)/(4.7x10^20 kg) = 8.6 J/g > > which is not a lot of heat to dissipate, so this could simply result in > increased temperature, or as you noted, be dissipated by ice. Even 4 times > that number will not produce much incremental temperature. > > Iapetus is so small one has to wonder how eneough energy is developed to > smush two bodies together to make it one spherical body. Looks like the > three body theory is not even necessary, unless I have a computation error. > Iapetus is not very dense, or very big. > > See: > > <http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/solar/eng/iapetus> > > Regards, > > Horace Heffner > > >
