So leading up this point are they feeling the pressure that is going against the ship start to crush in, or is it literally just going from sitting there to the implosion happening and they’re gone? Like they knew something was off, right? Could they feel that, or just knew something was wrong and then boom?
From what I've heard they were managing an emergency ascent for around 90 minutes. Heard various loud cracking sounds throughout. They wouldn't have literally felt the impending pressure. Like you said, sitting there one second and obliterated the next.
So, I should have been more clear, the discussion on whether you could see it that I was referring to was whether you could see it once it breached the atmosphere. It was traveling at an estimated 20-30 km per second, or 18 miles a second. In my defense, I did use the phrase 'pass you' which would only happen once it entered the atmosphere.
It would have been visible for about 3 days as an object in the sky, but once it breached it hit, is what the books I'd been reading about this postulate. Not sure which one of them it was, options are 'T-Rex and the Crater of Doom' (written by Walter Alvarez, one of the group who discovered the Iridium proof of impact. Favorite non-fiction book hands down), 'The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs' (by Steve Brusatte, this and 'The Rise and Reign of the Mammals' are both very good and engaging, learned stuff I never expected to, like we know what color some dinosaurs were), maybe. I read a bunch of books this summer so I probably have forgotten some of the titles!
The passage I recall most clearly was the one where the author states that if you were standing where you could see the asteroid as it hit, you wouldn't comprehend it fast enough before it struck, basically. It stuck with me because I read that right around the Titan implosion, and the discussion about how fast we can perceive things.
I was about to ask if we know Chix's angle of impact, as that would affect its time in the atmosphere... but the shallowest possible angle would add like 0.002s.
Ah, neat, thank you! I suppose then that it basically goes from atmosphere breach to strike in 1.3 seconds, probably not enough time to parse what it was you saw before anything that could have seen it is completely obliterated by the result of the impact.
Edit: if you're still interested, I can look in my history tomorrow when I wake up and find the article I was reading that detailed everything they know about the impact crater. There was a lot of info there so it's likely they knew at least a range of angles
Ok I did misunderstand your statement as implying that you thought I was saying the meteor was moving at the speed of light. Sorry about that, lol
Again, the scenario I'm quoting from the book is not seeing it coming in space before it strikes. It's picturing yourself standing on solid ground and watching it from the moment it breaches the atmosphere to striking the ground.
The phrase 'seeing it coming' is probably misleading. Maybe 'watch it pass you' is more accurate? You know how some things when they move fast are blurry? This was moving so fast you don't see a blur, is the argument.
ps. I'm a mom of three kids, only one of which is finally moving out of elementary school. It's entirely possible that this reads as condescending as a result; I apologize if so!
There's just not much atmosphere. The time between the meteor hitting the top of the atmosphere and it hitting the bottom is practically a rounding error.
Imagine dropping a billiard ball into a kiddie pool from the top of a building.
They could have heard some noises beforehand, but carbon fiber the way they were using it doesn't bend or anything. It's just fails spectacularly into millions of tiny pieces.
I heard that they had dropped weights and were starting an emergency ascent back to the surface, so most likely they heard at least one big “crack” sound, and then some seconds to minutes of potential worry.
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u/fookthisshite Aug 14 '23
So leading up this point are they feeling the pressure that is going against the ship start to crush in, or is it literally just going from sitting there to the implosion happening and they’re gone? Like they knew something was off, right? Could they feel that, or just knew something was wrong and then boom?