I just listened (Audible and Drove 12 hours), to a book where they used near C uranium or other heavy material sand to great effect. It occurred to me that this universe should be able to get near C speed sand to both defend against missiles and to hit ships with.
I have no idea how to turn .67 mg for a grain of quarts sand into explosive power. Apparent mass increases a lot at .999C.
The Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas by chance? Good series of books. Very different to the Frontiers Saga but that's not a bad thing.
I like the high-C sand idea simply because it is broader in targeting profile, so it could be used more easily when targeting ships that may want to move about. I get that it would have less impact, but still, if you dump a couple thousand pounds of sand at high enough velocity at a target, you could really dampen their enthusiasm.
The Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas by chance? Good series of books. Very different to the Frontiers Saga but that’s not a bad thing.
Listened to first three volumes so far. Audible on long trips.
dse
Only trouble with sand is it is unguided and could pose a threat for surrounding craft.
One of the doomsday scenarios for our day is launching a missile into orbit filled with sand at an opposite direction to the targets - at 25,000 mph, it would obliterate satellite mirrors, optics, solar panels and would remain in orbit for years
There is definitely multiple technologies to deal with space debris and near C sand in the data arch. Mostly I think that having Shields will stop Near C San. Yes it will more then likely drain shields, but sand will flare off the shields and be gone.
The Mass Effect series has a nice part that illistrations another issue with high=C sand. Note that while the video talks about much more massive rounds (20 kg), a sand grain sufficiently close to C could do as much damage. The big difference is there's a lot more grains of sand.
As for the sand, I think Four Islands has the main point, though it depends on how high-C. Technologies intended for space debris are probably more directed towards the particles to be moving much slower than the ship is. There is a huge difference in kinetic energy from 0.9 light and 0.95 light for example. If the ships are only designed to go 0.8 light, then a cloud of 0.9 grains of sand are going to to punch through the shields. I might be wrong, but thinking the kinetic energy of a particle at light speed (if it could be reached) is equal to it's mass-energy. So a grain of sand of some weight traveling at 0.99 light would hit with kinetic energy near that weight of antimatter, which ends up being upwards of a kiloton of TNT, and there would be 10s of millions of grains of sand in 1 ton of sand. It's also good to note that unlike nuclear or antimatter weapons, the sand grains have all their kinetic energy directed in a single direction. Making them potentially equivalent to a nuclear/antimatter weapon of upwards of 100,000x the energy in terms of ability to punch through material (although only about 2x as much in terms of energy imparted into the target, presuming the shield holds).
Would atmospheric reentry burn up all of the sand?
Would atmospheric reentry burning up the sand have any side effects like holes in the Ozone or superheating of the atmosphere causing storms or burning off of light, low density flammable gasses?
Would Near C Sand be a weapon to be used against planets?
Would atmospheric reentry burn up all of the sand?
Would atmospheric reentry burning up the sand have any side effects like holes in the Ozone or superheating of the atmosphere causing storms or burning off of light, low density flammable gasses?Would Near C Sand be a weapon to be used against planets?
It could wipe out a continent according to the star carrier series it was in. The energy in a grain of sand at 99% light speed is rather high.
Doesn't seem like they would burn up in the atmosphere due to velocity and even if they do, they would still impart their damage into the atmosphere which would cause issues due the amount of force.
Although how much damage depends on the amount of sand. It would be similar to a massive number of small tactical nukes going off in the atmosphere or across the surface. Wiping out a continent is probably possible depending on the density. Basically think of it as large scale (tactical) nuclear carpet bombing.
I'll have to re-read star carrier as I don't recall that part, unless it's in the newest book which I haven't read yet (another reason to re-read the series).
