Vorl Bek <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The report says .... it would release 20 > > billion megatons. > > Surely that is a tad exaggerated. >
I don't think so. A 10-km object striking at 20 km/s will produce roughly 600 million megatons. See: http://www.astronomynotes.com/solfluf/s5.htm This object is traveling the opposite direction of Mars, so the speed of impact would be 56 km/s. ("Megatons" in this context means megatons of TNT equivalent. Nuclear weapons jargon. The biggest bomb in history was 50 MT. According to this website, 6 x 10E7 MT = the force of a 9.4 Richter scale earthquake, about the same as 2011 Japanese quake.) - Jed
