From: richalivingston@gmail.com   
      
   On Monday, January 15, 2024 at 3:10:16=E2=80=AFPM UTC-6, Stefan Ram wrote:   
   > What would happen if a penny with a mass of 0.003 kg and a speed of   
   >   
   > 0.99999999999999999999999999999999999999 c   
   >   
   > from outer space would hit the earth (being directed at its center)?   
   >   
      
   You might want to look at:   
      
   https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/   
      
   This is a reasonably good analysis of a baseball going only 0.9c.  Your   
   penny would have a couple orders of magnitude greater energy, but   
   the effect would be pretty much the same, but greater scale.   
      
   Rich L.   
      
   [[Mod. note -- It's actually rather more than "a couple orders of   
   magnitude": the total energy (gamma*m*c^2) is around 10^17 times   
   larger for the penny (2e33 Joules) than for the baseball (3e16 Joules).   
      
   Stefan Ram's penny would have (much) more than enough energy to   
   vaporize the entire Earth.   
   -- jt]]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)