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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William, Armstrong. “Colliding Bodies.” The Washington Times Aug. 11, 2001. Academic Universe. Lexis Nexis. EBSCO Publishing. Colorado State University Lib. Mar. 2003 http://lib.colostate.edu/databases/>
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