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by OldCW wears The COAT of the Cosmos on November 15th, 2009
The ships have shields that can prevent any debris from colliding with the ship. I'm sure that they have something like this turned on while they're going warp 7 or whatever.
Dust is too small and the impact can't release enough energy to damage a ship but you could conceivably hit enough of it at those speeds to heat up the front of the ship.
Actually, it's a pretty good question.
by kickit on November 15th, 2009
Might want to stop by harvard in the morning and post it on the physics bulletin board...
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You're reading If one of those Star Trek ships was going so fast that stars flew by, if it hit a grain of dust would it blow up? How much energy would be in the impact?
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Comments
I bet even something the size of a bacterium at those speeds would cause an explosion like a hydrogen bomb.
by Anonymous on November 15th, 2009
I'm sure you've heard the famous equation E=MC squared.
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That equation applies here. It means that mass, that is, something like a bacterium, can be described as an amount of energy.
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Fact is, there is not enough mass in a dust particle or bacterium to to convert to that much energy even if all of it did.
by OldCW wears The COAT of the Cosmos on November 15th, 2009
That would only apply if you were limited to light speeds. Star Trek ships are not.
by Anonymous on November 15th, 2009
Oh yeah, that brings up another point. The Theory of Relativity. As you approach the speed of light your mass increases so that at the speed of light your mass would be infinite.
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So you can't achieve warp speeds simply by going faster. That would violate known physics principles.
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You would have to find a property of physics that allowed your mass to be irrelevant. What this means is that at warp speeds, your interaction with other objects with mass must be different. That is, you cannot have a situation where you travel at warp speeds and are also capable of hitting something because you cannot have ordinary mass while exceeding the speed of light.
by OldCW wears The COAT of the Cosmos on November 15th, 2009
very apt. you achieve warp speed by altering the space around you, not by going faster. your mass/effects thereof are protected inside the warp bubble.
by overeducated on November 16th, 2009
So could the warp bubble be used as a shield of invulnerbility?
by Anonymous on November 16th, 2009
I suppose it could. To the rest of the universe, you would have no mass, so there would be nothing to shoot at.
by OldCW wears The COAT of the Cosmos on November 16th, 2009