Timeline for How much more likely is it for a colony on Mars to receive a damaging meteorite hit than a similar structure on Earth?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 16, 2021 at 14:25 | comment | added | Ng Ph | @ChirR, I start to see the subtlety... I think. It's the x1.6 number that confused me. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 22:02 | comment | added | uhoh |
+1 This is a good answer but it may be necessary to dig a little deeper. The OP specified "several square kilometers" rather than the entire planet, so the size of the planet may not matter, and Mars is closer to the asteroid belt which may or may not have some bearing on this. Meteors from meteor showers are associated with particles from comets which may have a different size distribution than other sources of meteors (e.g. asteroid belt).
|
|
| Jun 15, 2021 at 21:24 | comment | added | ChrisR | @NgPh I should have clarified that in my mind, when a meteorite is closer to the Sun than the orbit of Earth, then it will never pop out on the other end. In that case, I believe my reasoning is correct. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 19:59 | comment | added | Ng Ph | The 1st part of your reasoning seems flawed: If I have a bucket of the same size as my friend's, the 2 of us will collect the same amount of rain, independently of how we run in circles of different sizes under the rain (uniformly distributed in space). Mars being closer to the Main Asteroid belt, it could indicate that your uniform distribution assumption doesn't hold. The conclusion that Mars would be hit more often than Earth (assuming same radius) is still correct though, but due to non-uniformity and not orbit size. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 18:51 | history | answered | ChrisR | CC BY-SA 4.0 |