If a rubber asteroid hit Earth, would it bounce?

Question

If a rubber asteroid hit Earth, would it bounce?

Answer 1

ha like a dodgeball??

of course it would! if it didnt all my research and studies on rubber would have been a waste of my college years! ha lol :D

Answer 2

depends how big. it might just burn up before it hits the earth

Answer 3

No.

It it a matter of the velocity involved.

K=1/2M*V2   (or Kenetic Energy = 1/2 the mass of the object multiplied by the square of the velocity of the object.)

The kinetic energy is equal to half the mass times the velocity squared.

That is physics talk for how much energy an object contains. In an impact that energy is released.  Being a smart guy, I'm sure you noticed that the velocity (speed) is more important in this equation than the mass (size) of the object.

An asteroid would be going several thousand miles an hour when it hit the Earth... (The gravitational potential energy of an object is equal to its mass times the acceleration due to gravity times its displacement from ground level (or any other arbitrary reference level))...at that speed it does not matter one whit what the thing is made of...there is going to be an explosion. In fact, since the energy goes up by the square of the velocity, you quickly reach a point whree it doesn't  matter all that much how big the thing is, once you get going fast enough there is going to be an explosion, no matter what.

Think of it this way... when you get hit by a Softball it hurts, but when you get hit by a bullet you die.  Why is that? Well the softball if a lot larger than the bullet, but the bullet is going A LOT faster. The bullet delivers more kenetic energy to your body, so your body takes more damage.

Same thing with an asteroid... anything coming in from space is going to be moving at several hundred, more likely several thousand, miles an hour.  You could fire a soft cuddly teddy bear, wrapped in soft feather pillows, wrapped in special shock absorbing foam... and you could fire it into a tub of jello... but at 17,000 miles an hour there is STILL going to be one heck of a big boom when it hits.

Answer 4

Depends on several factors

1. Volume of the asteroid

2. Weight of the asteroid

3. Velocity of the asteroid

4. Composition of the asteroid

  It would bounce if it touches the surface of earth.  Given

(1) It would have to enter the atmosphere with great speed

(2) It would need to be made of really strong material to avoid burning up before contact.

(3) Considering the average elasticity co-efficeint of earth (land and water separately) the asteroid should not be made of too hard a material.

Clearly (2) and (3) contradict. So in all probability the asteroid wont bounce back.

Answer 5

i don't think so because theres a outer covering of our world it will just pass through it

Answer 6

short of burning up completely in the atmosphere, no.... i'm not sure of the sizes, but up til a certain size, it would completely change on a molecular level due to the intense heat and pressure of slamming into our atmosphere... so it would lose it's 'bouncy-ness', and most likely cause just as much damage as any other celestial body slamming into earth...

at ridiculously big sizes, it wouldn't burn up or change upon hitting our atmosphere becuase it would be so ridiculously big there just simply wouldn't be enough of out atmosphere, nor enough time for the process to take place before it slammed into the earth.... and of something that big and moving that fast, rubber or not, it would likely just disintegrate the earth and the rubber and form one (or more) new bodies...

Answer 7

it depends on the size and density.   if it were to actually hit earth, unless it landed somewhere covered in concrete or hard dirt (or somewhere where there's not a lot of loosely packed particles to transfer/absorb the kinetic energy... AKA a hard surface), i doubt it would bounce.  considering that most of the earth is covered in water, and that a lot of it is covered in sand and thick vegetation, there's a really low chance of it bouncing.

Answer 8

Bounce,h**l would bounce,just don't be there when it bounces.