Using Computers to Model the Physics of an Asteroid Crash

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Includes Source Code

Computers in Physics

Abstract

This project is an experiment that sets up the earth's original velocities in the x and y direction

and changing them with the velocities/momentum of a meteor. It attempts to simply model a meteorite or

asteroid impact upon the earth and the subsequent change to the earth's orbit in terms of distance and

speed in relation to the sun.

Given the meteor's mass, velocity, angle, and the earth's coordinate point at the point of impact,

the computer program computes the earth's resulting velocities, both component and resultant velocities,

and also plots the points of the earth's orbit before impact from the x axis and after impact. From the data

collected, it is clear that a mass roughly at least one-one thousandths of the earth's mass or a velocity

greater than that of the average meteorite.

Background

Curiosity drives the wish to experiment with variables in order to discover some possible

occurrences where space debris/meteors impacts upon the Earth at which the Earth’s orbit or rotation

shifted. This experimentation attempts to model possible collisions at the simpler levels in which effects

such as angle of impact and the range of impact absorption between land and water are ignored. While

actual impacts upon Earth are roughly one in a thousand of all the near-Earth asteroids, there are still

chances in which a meteor impacts with enough force to change the Earth’s orbit- like the estimated 20-

25 kilometer meteor that may have killed off the dinosaurs almost 65 million years ago (Cretaceous).

The Earth’s orbit is that of an elliptical orbit, though relatively circular, so that the difference

between the periapsis and apoapsis, the closest distance and f...

... middle of paper ...

...%f",ax,vx,vy);

x =x+vx*dt;

y =y+vy*dt;

j =j+dt;

// printf(" j is: %f x=%lf y=%lf",j,x,y);

fprintf(fileout,"
%lf %lf", x,y);

if(x>earth[5]-5e8 && x
{

printf(" ending old: x=%f, y=%f
",x,y);

break;

}

}

//initialize the earth's New orbit

while(j<9.234e7)

{

/*ax=-6.67e-11*m*x/pow(r,3);

ay=-6.67e-11*m*y/pow(r,3);

vx=vx+ax*dt;

vy=vy+ay*dt;

x =x+vx*dt;

y =y+vy*dt;

t=t+dt;*/

t[3]=-G*1.989e30*earth[5]/pow(r,3);

t[4]=-G*1.989e30*earth[6]/pow(r,3);

t[1]=t[1]+t[3]*dt;

t[2]=t[2]+t[4]*dt;

earth[5] =earth[5]+t[1]*dt;

earth[6] =earth[6]+t[2]*dt;

fprintf(fileout,"
%lf %lf",earth[5],earth[6]);

r= sqrt(earth[5]*earth[5]+earth[6]*earth[6]);//resets distance from sun (r)

j+= dt;

/*if(earth[5]>x-5e8 && earth[5]
{count++;}

if(count=4)

{printf(" theoretically, the earth has orbitted thrice
");}

*/}

fclose(fileout);

return 0;

}

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