| Where would the planes go
Posted: 8/14/2009 11:26:23 PM |
Oort "cloud" is a term that must not be taken in our everyday literal sense. If you could go there and have a look, you wouldn't see hardly anything at all! (The "particles/objects" that make up that "cloud" are so sparse that you'd have to travel many many many miles to just go from one to another.)
That I understand, but that thing is massive not just in radial area but also in depth. Sure the objects are spread pretty far from each other, but there's just so many of them I imagine it's hard to dodge without a person or collision avoidance system.
The sun's gravity is something I hadn't considered though, it wouldn't be much but given the time to travel to just mars at normal flight speed I could see them getting pulled back into it.
Sure space is full of all kinds of really cool stuff, just not the kind of cool stuff that holds the average persons interest (which is what star trek does, makes up stuff that can hold the average persons interest). | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 8/15/2009 6:34:35 AM | | Planes require an atmosphere to operate. So...if they atmosphere disappeared, then the planes would crash. If the earth vanished, then its gravitational pull would also vanish and the planes would be launched into space. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 8/28/2009 6:15:53 PM | If the Earth Disapeared, the engines without oxygen would fail and shut down, the non pressurized parts os the plane would crumple like a soda can. Since the Fuselage is pressurized by enviromental systems run by the powerplant(engine), the system would revert to back-up power supplies and would only last hours...
It would drift at the site of earth's last position and travel in space with our solar system around the center of the Milky way for eons. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 8/28/2009 7:27:57 PM |
They're fascinated with our bums you know.
You're getting far too much information from reading in supermarket checkout lines. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 8/29/2009 9:02:27 AM | Like all good (or odd but interesting) questions, the answer is "it depends". Regardless, it would be over quick.
Consider this: the atmosphere is pretty thin. Don't be fooled by jets flying at 35,000ft (~10,000m). If the earth were the size of a basketball, the atmosphere (depending on where you draw the line between atmosphere and space) would be about 2mm thick. The part where airplanes could safely fly is much less, say the the thickness of a sheet of paper or two.
So much depends on how the Earth 'disappears'. If the Earth were to blow up, or be vapourized, then the atmosphere, and everything in it would be toast as well. Over immediately.
However, if the earth were to just magically disappear in such a way that the atmosphere, and everything in it, were intact, then 'everything' would have a short time to consider their fate.
What keeps the atmosphere around the Earth is the gravity of the Earth. No more Earth, no more gravity. So the thin band of atmosphere would be surrounded by vacuum on both sides (of space on one side, by the vacuum of the void where Earth used to be on the other) and there would be no (large source) of gravity to keep it together. So the atmospheric pressure would quickly disperse the gases out (and inwards) towards the vacuum. The length of time for this to happen is arguable, but I imagine it would only take a few minutes.
For the airplanes in the sky (and any birds, skydivers, pole vaulters, circus trapezers and rope skippers), in the absence of gravity, they would continue in a straight line in the direction they were heading when the earth disappeared. But they could only enjoy the experience until the atmosphere became too tenuous to support life. Airplanes might have a few minutes more. The engines would quickly sputter and quit as the atmosphere disappeared. The cabin would probably be ok until the atmospheric pressure outside got so low as to cause structural failure and subsequent air leakage (I don't know if jet planes are capable of maintaining structural integrity when face with a near vacuum outside). The oxygen masks would float (not drop) out and that might provide a few more minutes. But the lack of atmospheric pressure would quickly finish any passengers, perhaps before the oxygen runs out from the masks.
For the short term, all this stuff would float around in space where the Earth used to be. Their previous momentum, and any push from the atmosphere rushing to fill the vacuum, would disperse all that now cold debris a bit. Given time, much of that 'stuff' would probably end up being artificial satellites around the NEW Third Rock from the Sun, formerly know as the Moon. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 8/29/2009 1:45:06 PM |
I think we are really running out of things to talk about.
Yeah... But there is a kind of ebb and flow... Soon, cooler temperatures will drive people back indoors to snuggle up with their computers and come up with all kinds of new and fanciful shit...
This whimsical little "What if?" has been covered well, so I've nothing to add...
But it reminded me of this sci-fi flick called "Millennium", with Kris Kristofferson and this leggy blonde whose name I don't remember... ( Yeah, I could do a google and get her name; but I'm too lazy and it's not that freakin' important.)...
Anyway, the premise revolves around people in the future being able to see when planes are going to crash in the past...
So they time-warp back to minutes before impact, get everyone off the aircraft, and substitute bio-techno replicants for everyone so there will be bodies to find by NTSB people...
For reasons I don't recall; the future needed people... Weird... Don't remember how it ends... I was pretty stoned, though...
Shit... Maybe it was just a dream... | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/14/2009 3:52:19 PM | | I don't fly on planes unless they are equipped with an improbability drive! | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/14/2009 4:10:02 PM | Gee it is amazing how much thought has gone into a really stupid question. Now my question is what would your boss do if he caught you on the company computer answering really dumb questions at work?
Now back to goofing off at work. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/15/2009 7:32:54 AM | I think they would shoot off like marbles out of a slingshot and explode. The sudden disappearance of gravity, and thus air pressure would do two things;
1) The potential energy of an airborne object resisting decent would turn into the kinetic manifestation of the object going in the opposite direction of the force it was resisting, when that force disappears.
1) Airplanes are designed to withstand the pressure in the cabin when under the pressure of the atmosphere, not the lack of pressure in a vaccuum. *pop* | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/21/2009 10:50:35 PM | | The planes would slingshot out to Saturn and land there where massive parties would commence because everyone knows Saturn is the swingingest, hipest planet around. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/21/2009 11:54:51 PM | well.. if the planet exploded rather then imploded... the planes would be blown to atoms along with the planet.. but if the planet imploded..they would be sucked into the vaccuum like everything else on the planet.
If the planet just vanished...well... the engines would cut out and as the planes are not entirely air tight, the people inside would die relatively quick. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/22/2009 8:24:02 PM | The planes would float around for a few minutes and then be attracted to a huge planet made entirely of lost luggage.
Not long after landing on the planet of lost luggage would be in a bombardment of lost socks all of which would be left sided. | |
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| Where would the planes go
Posted: 10/22/2009 10:25:01 PM |
If the earth exploded, or just vanished with no reason at all, What would happen to all the planes in the Air?
They will likely crash into the Moon, Mercury, Venus or into the Sun. Though I doubt there will be any "crashing" into the Sun.... they will simply "vaporize" as they approach the Sun. | |
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