At 09:57 AM 1/20/2003, Ben McCafferty wrote:
>Sorry, but can someone tell me if terminal velocity applies to meteors?

Well yes...but a) it would be pretty high, you'd have to go a lot higher
than a skyscraper to duplicate it; and b) it's already going orders of
magnitude faster than Vterminal -- how much atmosphere it has to traverse
will control whether it gets down to something approaching that speed.  So
the ones that come straight in  are really fast, and the skimmers -- if
they get slowed beyond Vescape -- will slow down a lot more before they ground.

david

>   In
>other words, if it does, wouldn't this meteor have the same speed and
>momentum as a rock of equivalent size dropped from the top of a skyscraper?
>If so, it makes more sense that the damage is appropriate.  Hmmmm....

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"