Timeline for A 1 kilometre wide sphere of U-235 appears in an orbit around our planet. What happens?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 13, 2021 at 14:54 | comment | added | PcMan | @Rolexel that sphere masses 10 billion tonnes. The earth is roughly 500 billion times more massive. It will barely notice the new mass. If it did not explode, the sphere would try to pull tides 1/17000th of a millimeter in the ocean. Honestly, the mass is insignificant, unless it fall on you. or, as in this case, is made out of pure Explodium. | |
| Jan 13, 2021 at 0:19 | comment | added | Peter Mortensen | @Mike Caron: Dave Consiglio on Quora has specialised in such scenarios. | |
| Jan 13, 2021 at 0:16 | comment | added | Peter Mortensen | Many more examples exist. | |
| Jan 13, 2021 at 0:14 | comment | added | Peter Mortensen | This is an Everyone Dies™ scenario. | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 21:28 | comment | added | Mike Caron | Short answer: we die. Long answer: we dieeeeeeeeee | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 17:59 | comment | added | Paul Sinclair | So - these hyper-intelligent aliens' plan to deal with negative depictions of aliens in human media is to prove big time that that humans were vastly underestimating how nasty the aliens are? | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 14:56 | comment | added | Rolexel | Everyone's super focused on the uranium part but shouldn't something so large and heavy spawning close to earth out of nowhere (even with a 0.5 livespawn before exploding) have an impact on earth rotation on itself and around the sun ? Since it all works at very high speed couldn't this impact get earth out of all the trouble listed as answers ? | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 13:11 | comment | added | Tristan | they're dead, dave. Everybody's dead, dave youtube.com/watch?v=6Hrwut2dV0k&t=3m15s | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 12:13 | comment | added | Carl Witthoft | +1 funny! , because the stability of even a tiny mass of pure 235 is incredibly short-lived | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 2:05 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | The atmosphere wont quite maintain a nuclear fusion reaction on it's own, but it doesn't need all that much help to get it to, especially if you can reradiate some of the escaping energy back into it. @puppetsock you might enjoy this - fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf | |
| Jan 12, 2021 at 0:38 | answer | added | Stilez | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 22:18 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jan 11, 2021 at 20:05 | comment | added | puppetsock | It would not have time to melt. It would be too busy exploding. Still, if you can dump billions of tons of U235 into close Earth orbit in less time that it takes to explode (some 3 or 4 microseconds) there are other things you could usefully do to be lethal. Things that wouldn't make the surface uninhabitable for nearly so long but that would wipe out just about all bothersome life. Imagine, for example, dropping a plain old rock into the same location. | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 16:14 | answer | added | LSerni | timeline score: 35 | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 14:43 | comment | added | MedwedianPresident | @user6760 Pure Uranium. So yes, assume that a meltdown starts immediately. | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 14:42 | comment | added | user6760 | How much fuel pellet can fit inside this sphere? Without control rod and proper cooling, meltdown... ;( | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 14:39 | answer | added | PcMan | timeline score: 14 | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 14:11 | history | asked | MedwedianPresident | CC BY-SA 4.0 |