Answered

Astronomers estimate that a 2
-
km wide asteroid collides with the Earth once every million years. The
collision could pose a threat to life on Earth. (a) Assume a spherical asteroid has a mass of 3200 kg
for
each cubic meter of volume and moves toward the Earth at 15 km/s. How much destructive energy
could be released when it embeds itself in the Earth? (b) For comparison, a nuclear bomb could release
about
. How many such bombs would have to
explode simultaneously to release the
destructive energy of the asteroid collision with Earth? ...?

Answer :

m)³ / 6 = 4.2e9 m³ 
so its mass is 
M = 3300kg/m³ * 4.2e9m³ = 1.4e13 kg 
and so its KE at 16 km/s = 16000 m/s is 
KE = ½ * 1.4e13kg * (16000m/s)² = 1.8e21 J 

# of bombs N = 1.8e21J / 4.0e16J/bomb = 44 234 bombs 
give or take. 

Thank you for posting your question here at brainly. I hope the answer will help you. Feel free to ask more questions here.

Other Questions