What's the effect of a standard bullet hitting Earth at 0.99 c?

Asked Sep 17 '15 at 14:39

Active Sep 17 '15 at 14:48

Viewed 496 times

Let's say that some aliens got mad at us and decided to destroy Earth. A young child on one of the alien starships was playing with his toy gun which could shoot normal bullets at relativistic speeds...

The bullet is a standard one, let's say for the sake of simplicity one that is used on a AK47. It is shot towards Earth at 0.99 c.

What would be the effects of the impact? I imagine the bullet doesn't have enough time to burn up in the atmosphere. Do the effects vary by impact angle?

edited Sep 17 '15 at 14:48

Vincent

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asked Sep 17 '15 at 14:39

MedwedianPresident2

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This: Diamond. Or this: Relativistic baseball. – Frostfyre Sep 17 '15 at 14:42
Assuming it doesn't simply fall apart first, of course. – Frostfyre Sep 17 '15 at 14:43
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Voting to close: this is not a world building question. It's more of a Physics question. – Erik Sep 17 '15 at 14:54
We also have several "How to destroy the planet" questions that pretty much cover this as well. Mainly this answer http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/18419/189 – James Sep 17 '15 at 14:56
possible duplicate of What single element could destroy the world? – James Sep 17 '15 at 14:56
it's very similar to this one http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/22862/the-last-ride-of-the-magic-schoolbus-termination-of-the-ignorant. The formula used there can be used to estimate the effects of a bullet sized projectile vs. a school bus sized one. – bowlturner Sep 17 '15 at 15:22

What's the effect of a standard bullet hitting Earth at 0.99 c?

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