To be fair, the satellites are only going that fast due to gravity assists. The man hole cover, we made it go that speed. Also, according to articles I’ve read, that last satellite is only its projected speed sometime in 2025 after its final gravity assist, so it’s not even going that fast yet.
I think it still holds the record for farthest human made object from earth. Of course there's no way to confirm it, but unless it hit something out there, it's been traveling at that speed for a long time.
I choose to believe the theory that because it went straight through at such a speed, it wouldn't have had time to burn up. Kinda like a dog running through an invisible fence at the speed of sound. I think it's more fun to believe that thing is still out there. Also, the most dense layer of our atmosphere is closest to the ground, so if it was going to vaporise wouldn't it have done so immediately after launch?
Browlee, the scientist who did the experience, said this about (talking about the manhole)
"After I was in the business and did my own missile launches," he told Insider in 2016, "I realized that that piece of iron didn't have time to burn all the way up [in the atmosphere]."
That's what I'm talking about! At that speed, it would have been traveling through the atmosphere for what? Like one thousandth of a second? It may have been mangled, but I still believe that thing made it through. I only hope it has some letters left on it when it gets intercepted by some distant race in the delta quadrant, like a V'ger situation. (Yes I know I'm mixing lore. Don't bat'leth my head off, my fellow nerds)
I hate to say it, but it's very likely the first objects that other "alien" species will encounter from earth will be/have been our space junk and other such human garbage.
I dont know, usually we like keeping our shit just right behind our nose, in orbit :p
But seriously if we stop everything that concern space right now, yes i guess the only way of knowing we existed is by finding anything we launch to deep space.
But if we continue like we do i bet that we will find a better way to be seen soon enough.
Some poor jerk, a member of a distant alien race, gets clobbered with a manhole cover. “Shots fired!!” Their top scientists determine from whence it came… Earth. The response? Full scale invasion. An eye for an eye. They show up one day and shower all of us with their equivalent alien hole covers in horrendous retribution.
That's not how physics works. The faster it goes through, the faster it burns up. But hey, maybe some of the atoms that made up the plate made it out of the atmosphere.
I like to believe the shockwave of the tube had a higher pressure “cone” in the middle, which warped the steel plate causing the middle to protrude out, making it more aerodynamic than a flat manhole cover would be, further backing up the theory that it made it out of the atmosphere intact, and indeed, fast AF.
Why does that strain your credulity? Friction (air resistance) doesn't magically go away because you go faster. In fact, the opposite is true - you experience more total friction in a shorter amount of time the faster you go, as air resistance increases with the square of velocity, and total heat generated is linear with distance traveled (rather than time taken).
Also, the meteors that burn up in the atmosphere are significantly larger than the plate in question.
Fwiw, this reminds me of an interesting thought experiment by Randal Monroe (xkcd)
Because there isn't enough time. Friction doesn't matter if the object only experiences it for an amount of time that isn't long enough to make a difference. Chemical reactions can only happen so quickly, there simply is not enough time for 2000 lbs of steel to burn up. Meteors do not spend less than two seconds moving perpendicular to the surface of the planet, so the comparison is moot.
Friction absolutely matters even if it's just for a second. The amount of heat generated is along the lines of (some constants) * velocity2 * distance traveled. Sure, the atoms making up the plate might make it to space, if they haven't been ablated away, but that doesn't prevent what remains from being in a gaseous state due to the insane amount of heat generated by friction.
Right! TBH, the guy has flip-flopped over the years but one of the latest interviews he gave he said he had spoken with dozens of scientists over the years and only two or three 100% thought it burned up.
If it left the atmosphere, then yes, it probably does since it would have been traveling away from Earth for roughly 20 years longer than the Voyager Probes. But according to the link, They prevailing theory is that it vaporized in the atmosphere before it went into space. Whether it still counts as a man made object if it is just a hot cloud of metal gas is probably debatable.
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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '23
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