Hypervelocity Experiments (VIDEO)

Brown University

Caption

Hypervelocity impact experiments, like the one shown here, reveal key clues about how impacts deliver water to asteroids, moons, and planets. In this experiment, a water-rich impactor collides with a bone-dry pumice target at around 11,200 miles per hour. The target was designed to rupture partway through the experiment in order to capture materials for analysis. This high-speed video (taken at 130,000 frames per second) slows down the action--in real time, the experiment is over in less than a second.

Credit

Terik Daly

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