It would be interesting for that speed gap to be filled. We might be able to guesstimate the density of these smaller object in some manner, although at the moment I am at a loss. The main thought that comes to my mind is along the lines that I mentioned previously about the bombardment of Earth, moon, and other planets that happened around a billion years after they were formed. The current theory as I recall is that these missiles came from our solar system when they were diverted by outer planets changing orbits. Of course, the history is mucked up by now and I doubt that the proof is there.
Perhaps instead of being home grown, many of these arrived due to being ejected as nearby stars formed. It is likely that many moderate sized objects would be sent fleeing the inner regions of these new stars as large heavy planets take shape and give them the boot. It takes time to reach our sun and a billion years might be enough although I have not calculated how far they might travel during that period. The planet formation period is measured in the millions of years so that period would be relatively brief compared to billions. I am curious as to the distribution of the speeds of these objects as they head outwards. Would we expect them to arrive in waves or slowly dribble into our area? The density of impacts seen upon the moon look like a large gauge shotgun was the source. Dave -----Original Message----- From: James Bowery <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Jan 10, 2014 6:14 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:[OT]Star Object Ejection Process Unfortunately that narrative leaves a huge gap between 72km/s and 0.01c (3000km/s) -- and it is right in the geometric middle of this gap that 1 million miles per hour falls: 500km/s. This is important because although it is disappearingly unlikely that one of these hypervelocity (million mph) stars would collide with anything in our solar system, the potential exists for a vastly larger number of vasly smaller objects -- objects on the order of the size of the 100ft diameter diamond asteroid exemplar of the narrative. What is the statistical distribution of such small, hypervelocity objects? Even if all of the potential hypervelocity starts were being ripped apart into precisely 100ft diameter diamonds traveling at 500km/s, I conjecture the odds of any of them impacting anything in our solar system, including the sun, would still be disappearingly small. Nevertheless, this would be an interesting exercise in astronomical numbers. On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 9:54 AM, Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote: On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 6:13 AM, Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. <[email protected]> wrote: What would happen if a million mile per hour 1 ton rock impacted? There's an interesting xkcd writeup on a similar question (posed by an eight year-old): "If a meteor made out of diamond and 100 feet in diameter was traveling at the speed of light and hit the earth, what would happen to it?” http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/ Eric
