What happens if you shoot in space? What happens if you shoot a firearm in outer space? If you shoot a boiled egg.
Fire doesn't burn in vacuum, but what about when fired from a gun? A modern cartridge contains a certain amount of its own oxidizer, which allows the gunpowder to detonate. Therefore, oxygen is not required for the shot.
A shot in space will differ only in its smoke trail; it forms a sphere of smoke at the muzzle. But shooting in space can lead to very interesting consequences.
According to Newton's third law, when fired, you will be thrown back, and the bullet will continue to move literally forever. After all, as you know, our universe is expanding at a speed of 73.3 km per second for every 3.26 million light years, and a bullet will never catch up with the atoms of black matter, which are located 40-50 thousand light years from it. By the way, you will also move away from the starting point forever, but very slowly (about a couple of centimeters per second).
Another interesting point: if you want to shoot and hit Jupiter, you don’t have to aim: you can shoot from the hip. Jupiter's gravity is so strong that it itself will attract a bullet, and it will reach its surface at a speed of 60 km/sec.
But you need to be careful when shooting: if you are in orbit, say, planet Earth, and shoot, then, if the circumstances are unfortunate, the bullet can go around the planet and enter your back. After all, objects in the orbits of planets are in a state of free fall.
Scientists even once planned to conduct such an experiment in order to study the consequences of collisions of objects at high speed. They named the top of a mountain on the Moon at an altitude of 1.6 km as the ideal place for the experiment. But the idea was not realized.
One question remains: why are there so few good old firearms in science fiction films that can lead to such unexpected consequences?
pula 28-09-2005 13:22
Is not it?
FRAG 28-09-2005 15:10
Planet Earth also moves in outer space. If you shoot against its movement... In short, these damn bullets fly as they want, even behind the shooter!
It’s not for nothing that Suvorov didn’t like them...
Dem0n 28-09-2005 16:17
...from Osa in the opposite direction to the movement, then the bullet will fly after the shooter!
Is not it?
At that moment, while the flight is taking place, the speed of the aircraft is equal to the speed of the shooter, and accordingly equal to the speed of the bullet that is loaded into the wasp; when fired, it turns out that the speed of the bullet will increase, i.e. your theory is not correct?! IMHO.
Bryansk 28-09-2005 16:57
2 Pula - if I understand correctly, the plane flies “forward” and we shoot “backwards”, right? If so, then what are we looking at relative to - if relative to the reference system - shooter-bullet - then it will fly backward, and if from the observer’s side on the ground, then probably forward, because the speed of the Wasp’s shot is still less than the speed of the plane (probably) And if you look from the point of view of little green men, then... Who knows where it will fly... :-)))
pula 28-09-2005 17:39
quote: Originally posted by Dem0n:
At that moment, while the flight is taking place, the speed of the aircraft is equal to the speed of the shooter, and accordingly equal to the speed of the bullet that is loaded into the wasp; when fired, it turns out that the speed of the bullet will increase, i.e. your theory is not correct?! IMHO.
You didn’t read my “theory” carefully - let’s shoot backwards. In general, if we judge the speed of the bullet relative to the shooter, then nothing will change (neglecting all sorts of environmental densities at the aircraft’s flight altitude and, therefore, the friction of the bullet with the air). For an observer on earth (if he can observe all this), the bullet must still fly behind the plane, since its speed is higher than the speed of the bullet.
For example, the cruising speed of the TU-154 passenger airbus is 945 km/h (it seems so, who knows more precisely - correct), that is, 262 m/s. The speed of the Wasp bullet is about one and a half times less.
vegur 28-09-2005 17:43
From the point of view from the center of the galaxy (if someone sees it, the bullet), it will remain in place
vegur 28-09-2005 17:47
And further
Which planes have windows you can shoot out of backwards?
And what's more; on airplanes, windows are more
OKUPANT 28-09-2005 20:50
If the plane flies forward (usually this happens), and we shoot backward, then the shooter and the bullet will move away from each other at a speed equal to the sum of the speeds of the bullet and the plane. I think the author is joking.
pula 28-09-2005 21:56
Of course, I'm joking, because this is a flame. But in physics at school I definitely scored “excellent”. But some people definitely don’t. I was especially struck by the last statement, about the sum of speeds. Ha ha ha! Try jumping backwards from a moving motorcycle/bicycle... so what? Will you rush back even faster? The question is rhetorical.
pula 28-09-2005 21:58
In general, it’s true - there’s no point in shooting out of airplane windows :-) neither backwards nor forwards
OKUPANT 28-09-2005 22:11
I didn't write that something will fly faster. I wrote that two objects will move away from each other faster. With a motorcycle too. Of course, you won’t rush back any faster.
pula 28-09-2005 22:17
Two again! :-)
Objects will be removed at the same speed as with a stationary shot. See "Physics 9th grade"
Shurcello 28-09-2005 22:32
quote: Originally posted by pula:
Of course, I'm joking, because this is a flame. But in physics at school I definitely scored “excellent”. But some people definitely don’t. I was especially struck by the last statement, about the sum of speeds. Ha ha ha! Try jumping backwards from a moving motorcycle/bicycle... so what? Will you rush back even faster? The question is rhetorical.
Faster, relative to a motorcycle. Slower, relative to the ground. It's just vector addition. Those. shot backwards from an airplane, the bullet will have the total speed of the airplane and itself (if measured from the airplane), and the speed of the airplane will be the speed of the bullet if measured from the ground.
OKUPANT 28-09-2005 22:43
quote: Originally posted by pula:
Two again! :-)
Objects will be removed at the same speed as with a stationary shot. See "Physics 9th grade"
Do you want to say that the distance between the bullet and the plane (in one case moving, in the second case standing still) will increase at the same speed?
pula 29-09-2005 08:18
This is exactly what I want to say, but I’m too lazy to prove it :-)
OKUPANT 29-09-2005 10:03
But prove it
ULD 29-09-2005 10:38
If you shoot from an airplane, you will end up in a police station. And no physics.
Pavel_F 29-09-2005 14:14
Exactly, no physics, just physiology. And you will end up in a cemetery.
pula 29-09-2005 14:23
quote: Originally posted by ULD:
If you shoot from an airplane, you will end up in a police station. And no physics.
No, well, gentlemen... we are considering a hypothetical situation: there is a plane, a bullet and an observer from the ground, but nothing else.
Now about the proof. It was correctly said - addition of velocity vectors. Consequently, the speed of the bullet relative to the ground will become less. After all, we are shooting backwards, in the direction in which the plane is moving in the opposite direction!
At the everyday level: an 18x45T cartridge flies in an airplane at a certain speed, a bullet jumps out of it (the cartridge) and vomits back. But she already has some speed, and she just reduces it due to the gunpowder newly acquired during the explosion. But, I repeat, this is all about the relationship with the earth.
OKUPANT 29-09-2005 15:51
And I ask you all the time about the plane.
4V4 29-09-2005 21:02
Whose plane is it?
Shurcello 29-09-2005 21:04
Yes everything is correct. Something and I stepped first. The speed relative to the plane will not change.
Almsk 30-09-2005 12:28
and it’s even more interesting not to shoot a wasp from an airplane, but to shoot a fly
Merlin 30-09-2005 08:56
quote: Originally posted by Shurcello:
Yes everything is correct. Something and I stepped first. The speed relative to the plane will not change.But it’s more interesting if the speed of the plane and the bullet are the same. Then after firing backwards, the absolute speed of the bullet will immediately reach zero, and it will begin to fall down
In any case, it will fall down.
Eh, ballistic physicists...
ps
Question?2:
Will a paratrooper who jumps out of it fly after the plane?
4V4 30-09-2005 10:46
If the aircraft is not affected by air resistance (which is unlikely to happen to it), it will always be under the plane, uniformly accelerating, approaching the ground, which it will inevitably hit.
Nansen 02-10-2005 02:55
Blah-ah-ah, about the paraturist, why? Why "to the ground, on which it will inevitably fall"? I was just getting ready to jump with a parachute again tomorrow (today). Ah-ah-ah!!! I was scared again, I won’t fucking go.
Palych1 03-10-2005 03:01
Don't be afraid! Jump! Just don't forget to put on your parachute. :-)
Palych1 03-10-2005 03:27
Like this. I caught the bullet with my hand. It sounds crazy at first glance, but it’s true. And everything is strictly in accordance with the laws of physics.
Anryal 03-10-2005 03:35
In "Technology - Youth" they described an incident that happened during WWI.
Airplanes back then had open cockpits. During an air battle, the pilot saw a small object flying next to the plane at arm's length. Without hesitation, the pilot reached out and grabbed this object in his hand. He brought it to his eyes and examined it; it turned out to be an enemy bullet.
damn, it was NEO! A real thing won’t take off, it needs an oncoming flow for lift to appear. However, if the plane is all hypothetical, then hypothetically it can. With one assumption: the “fan,” as you put it, should be in front (real ones have had it in the back). Then the air flow created by the rotation of the hypothetical “fan” may at some point reach such a speed that a lifting force will appear on the part of the wing streamlined by the flow, sufficient to lift this unfortunate plane off the already tired treadmill. And it will fly off into the distance, as befits a decent airplane!
Sivutya 12-10-2005 23:59
Damn, they got confused... even the balls went behind the rollers...
Absolutely nothing will fly anywhere. The conditions for shooting and approaching (removing) the bullet relative to surrounding objects inside the aircraft will be the same as if the aircraft was standing still
Amanauz 15-10-2005 02:37
quote: Originally posted by Palych1:
In "Technology - Youth" they described an incident that happened during WWI.
Airplanes back then had open cockpits. During an air battle, the pilot saw a small object flying next to the plane at arm's length. Without hesitation, the pilot reached out and grabbed this object in his hand. He brought it to his eyes and examined it; it turned out to be an enemy bullet.
Like this. I caught the bullet with my hand. It sounds crazy at first glance, but it’s true. And everything is strictly in accordance with the laws of physics.
I read about this as a child in “entertaining physics” by Ya Perelman.
From the point of view of modern physics, nothing that has a non-zero rest mass is capable of reaching the speed of light. You can only get closer to her. Moreover, the closer the speed is to the speed of light, the more energy must be spent in order to accelerate further. Someday you simply won't have enough available energy to speed up even a little more.
If you, moving at a speed close to the speed of light, fire a pistol, nothing surprising will happen to you. You will see exactly the same shot as usual. From your point of view (subjective), the bullet will fly at the same speed and hit the target after the same time. The bullet won’t get stuck in the barrel (unless the gun misfires) and certainly won’t suck anything in.
I also believe that the speed of the bullet is too low to create any pronounced relativistic effects. Therefore, it is more interesting to consider the option of shooting from a laser (which itself moves at the speed of light).
But even in this case, you will see exactly the same thing as if you were testing a laser while standing motionless on Earth.
This is the whole point of the theory of relativity. It doesn't matter whether you are moving or stationary. In fact, at any moment in time you are moving from the point of view of something (the Earth itself is moving very quickly), but from the point of view of something else (who is moving with you) you are motionless. At the same time, it is impossible to say what is more true: are you moving or not? Both statements are equally true.
A much more difficult question is how the observer relative to whom you are moving almost at the speed of light (we will call him a “stationary” observer) will see the situation.
Firstly, I also understand this with difficulty (and it’s far from a fact that I can accurately describe everything). Secondly, it is even more difficult to explain this clearly to a person who has not tried to break his brain with the theory of relativity. Distances at such speeds decrease, masses increase and discrepancies in the flow of time become obvious.
Let's say your target was 300,000 kilometers away. You fired a laser and the beam hit the target in exactly 1 second. From your point of view. And from the point of view of a “stationary” observer, the target was 300 kilometers away from you, but the beam reached the target almost 2 weeks later (I didn’t calculate it using formulas, but estimated very roughly, so the error may be large, but the general essence is correct). That being said, you are both right.
From the point of view of modern physics, a person cannot move at the speed of light. I wrote about this at the beginning of the answer. So let's replace "at the speed of light" with "at 99.9% the speed of light."
The bullet will not hit a person, because it will fly at a speed of, say, 99.900001% of the speed of light, that is, faster.
I will repeat the main idea again. The fact that something is moving almost at the speed of light does not fundamentally change anything. If a bullet does not hit the shooter under normal conditions on Earth, then even at “almost the speed of light” the bullet will not hit him. If on Earth a bullet hits a target, it means it will hit at “almost the speed of light.” Any other outcome would be a violation of the principle of relativity.
High speed will only change the numbers: bullet flight time, bullet flight length, bullet size. But fundamentally nothing can change: there will be a shot, the bullet will hit the target.
Answer
CommentDiscussed what would happen if shoot in space from a firearm.
Clayton S. Andersontwo-time former International Space Station astronaut, six-time space traveler, thirty-year NASA employee:
Well, if the gun had been loaded, someone would have been in a lot of danger... especially if they were aiming at the wall of the autonomous compartment! While I'm no expert on stretching the limits of imagination, I would guess that if the gun is actually loaded, the bullet will follow where the shooter points the gun and fires the shot (and if that's not the case, I'd blame it on Robonaut). The bullet will move in the opposite direction due to the impulse forces from the gunpowder in the barrel chamber. I can't imagine it moving too fast, but the "impact/bounce" force from my own experience can be significant. I guess physicists should measure it.
It will be much more interesting to do this in vacuum space during a spacewalk. Then the bullet will travel forever, and the astronaut - if he is not attached to the space station in any way - will again move in the opposite direction from the bullet for as long as his safety tether allows. In this case, they will slowly return to their original position due to the tether's ability to retract, or the tether will break, turning the astronaut into a scenario of desperately pleading and activating his SAFER (Simplified Astronaut Extravehicular Rescue Device) in hopes of returning "home" to the station.
Frank Hale, physicist, software developer:
Shoot in space? This is quite real. The vacuum in outer space will not be a problem for the shot. The weapon does not require oxygen to operate. The gunpowder or other explosive in the cartridge that contains the bullet is not affected by the atmosphere. It has an oxidizer mixed with a flammable substance and is ideal for firing in a vacuum. Even the fuse, struck by the firing pin, is absolutely autonomous and can work in a vacuum.
Shooting a weapon in space will be even a little better than on Earth. The bullet will not need to "pierce" the air and compress it immediately after exiting the pistol/shotgun. The air will not reduce the speed of the moving bullet, so the weapon's range will become essentially infinite, and the bullet will, in turn, move in a circular path, but its trajectory will be different from the trajectory of the weapon/shooter. For example, the travel speed of the International Space Station (ISS) is approximately 17,000 miles per hour, which is equal to 7,600 m/s. The muzzle velocity of the bullet ranges from 120 m/s to 1200 m/s depending on the type of weapon, and therefore the circular trajectory of the bullet will be unlike that of the astronaut who fired it. In general, shooting in the forward direction of the orbit will result in a more elongated orbit that will always remain at or above the ISS orbit. If fired in the opposite direction, the bullet could eventually plunge into the atmosphere and fall out of orbit.
There is no need to fire a weapon to see if it works or not. The difference between the mass of the bullet and the mass of the weapon plus the person holding the weapon indicates that the bullet receives virtually all of the kinetic energy when fired, even if they both receive the same momentum. However, assuming the astronaut is moving freely in space and the muzzle line does not point to the center of mass of the barrel + astronaut, a firearm discharge will transfer little angular momentum to the astronaut.
For more accurate calculations, we can cite the example of the M4 carbine, which has an initial bullet speed of 910 m/s. The weapon weighs 3.4 kg and the bullet weighs 4 g. The ISS space suit weighs about 124 kg, and if we assume that the astronaut weighs 70 kg, then the mass of the weapon, astronaut and space suit is about 197 kg. If the initial speed of the bullet is 910 m/s, then the bullet impulse will be 3.6 Ns (4 g * 910 m/s). If the astronaut + weapon have the same momentum, then the bullet will move 18 mm/s (4 g * 910 m/s / 197 kg). Then the astronaut will have a very low speed. The kinetic energy of the bullet would be 1656 J (see 4 g * (910 m/s)^2/2), while the astronaut + weapon would have a kinetic energy of 0.02 J (122 kg * (18 mm/s)^2 /2). Thus, as I already said, the bullet receives all the kinetic energy. In the worst case scenario, if a bullet passes near the astronaut's head, he will spin through space every three minutes, which can be easily controlled by the auxiliary motor used by the astronaut to move around.
Cooling is the only problem with multiple shots. Cooling in space will be radiation, but not convection, so the weapon can overheat. I trust the lubricant used on the firearm to evaporate very slowly. Therefore, I doubt that the grease will dry out much faster than on Earth.
Let's say you are sitting so-so in the office and you are very bored. And suppose you suddenly got the idea to go to a shooting range, take the most powerful machine gun with a silencer, attach a belt of 700 rounds to it and fire them all at once. What will happen in this case? We definitely didn't know about it. They assumed that the machine gun would not be envied at that moment. But so what! Barrel metal heated to the point of redness and a molten muffler, this is what 700 bullets flying out of the barrel will lead to!
The shot from West Coast Armory (not to be confused with West Coast Custom) shows an M249 SAW machine gun and two people, a shooter and an assistant handing him a belt of ammunition. As stated in the description of the video, somewhere after 350-400 bullets were fired, the muffler quickly melted. A few seconds later, the metal at the end of the barrel became so hot that the muffler was literally turned inside out, bent to the side. However, the machine gun continued firing.
As proud testers who managed to slightly melt the barrel of a machine gun said: “The weapon itself shot perfectly and there were no problems with it. The only problem we encountered afterwards was that someone needed to clean up afterwards.".
There is no confirming video with the same machine gun, which would have fired several hundred more bullets. It seems to me, as an amateur in this matter, that after such merciless use the barrel should become completely unusable. Perhaps this is not the case.
While we're talking about machine guns, here's another video that explains one of the most mysterious topics of my childhood: How did fighter planes shoot through working propellers?
Enjoy watching
