General / Off-Topic So, would we actually hear another ship explode in space?

[Chris Simon]

Yeah yeah, a thousand times milled flour. But these little home experiments show that, actually, we probably would!

[video=youtube;l8MljsHpYRk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8MljsHpYRk[/video]

[video=youtube;RpvgTojsuMA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpvgTojsuMA[/video]

There are even several interesting things I never thought of, before, like the speeds, for example. It's rather interesting.

 

[cmdr underhill]

Very interesting! He's not that great at communicating, but I'd say he's done some good work there. At first I was ready to dismiss him based on the size of his vacuum chamber (even after the bag/bottle "controls"), but after some thought, an inverse square decay would still be audible. The paper in the second video also helps make the point I think.

Since the shockwave basically just hits you and you're back to vacuum, I'd bet it would just sound like a quick pop (maybe pretty loud too, not sure yet).

Cool stuff!

 

[Chris Simon]

Yes exactly. Even in his small experiment, it actually really does make much sharper, higher-pitched "pop", which is consistent with higher velocity and direct contact with the metal, instead of slower shockwave through air.

 

[Arry]

When our ships, finally destruct, they must make a lot of different noises, at many frequencies. So dependent on how close we are we could hear and feel, all kinds of things.

Are our own ships, effected by any shock wave from said explosions?

 

[Flimley]

The dude is very interesting. The theory sounds good, and his conclusions seem logical. And to my thinking/imagination accurate. ..

Flimley

 

[Chris Simon]

When our ships, finally destruct, they must make a lot of different noises, at many frequencies. So dependent on how close we are we could hear and feel, all kinds of things.

Are our own ships, effected by any shock wave from said explosions?

He says it, there. It's not a shockwave per se (there is no air or other medium to propagate a shockwave), but rather the gasses and debris from the explosion itself, traveling at the speed corresponding with the energy of the explosion (1000m/s in the case of the video, rather than normal 300m/s in air). Those make "sound" when they hit the hull of another ship.

 

[Morbad]

Are our own ships, effected by any shock wave from said explosions?

If the blast were uniform, the amount of energy delivered per unit of area would fall off by the square of distance from the explosion...inverse-square law and all.

Unless you were extremely close, or hit by a still solid chunk of debris, effects would likely be minimal.

 

[cmdr underhill]

You can think of it this way (at least in reality ) any blast that's going to damage a ship, necessarily must produce deformation in the ship's hull & structure. Deformation is part of the definition of how sound travels, i.e. anything that's going to rattle your ship around and produce damage, is going to be noisy.

On the other side of it, someone tapping against the hull with a hammer may not damage your ship (very lightly if at all), but you'll still hear it. So a blast from a km or 2 away may make a quick pop noise in your ship, even though it doesn't damage you.