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Home Q & A Board Science-Related Homework Help Physics
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smmrwds smmrwds
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11 years ago
I'm imagining getting beaned by a ball in a lower gravity field.  It seems pretty clear that one would be able to throw a heavy ball higher and farther than in a higher gravity field.  But if the ball hit me, would it do as much damage to my head on impact?  What if it were much denser than a normal ball, i.e. made of metal?  Could I take a shot in the melon and be okay?
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#1
11 years ago
Theortically, like on the moons of Mars, you could throw the baseball and have it go into orbit.

Gravity means the pull downwards is not as significant, but there is still mass to the item in question and you could get some serious damage.

Remember when that bolt hit the windshield of the shuttle? It made a hideous dent in it.
wrote...
#2
11 years ago
it depends on how hard it's thrown. no matter what, the exit velocity of the ball is the return velocity, so if you have a bowling ball going up at 1 m/s, you'll have a bowling ball hitting you at 1 m/s. however, it will be able to gain more height in that time.
wrote...
#3
11 years ago
The lower the gravity - the softer the impact!!  Take the shot !!
wrote...
#4
11 years ago
What matters to impact damage is the mass and speed of the object. Mass does not change from high to low gravity. On the moon, for example, where the gravity is 1/6 g, you could throw a ball further (no air friction to slow it down, and less gravity pulling it to the ground allow overall further range of travel), but since the mass of the ball would be the same as on earth, it would not actually go any faster, thus the force of impact (Force = mass x acceleration) would be the same as on earth.

Like mass, density would stay the same in low gravity. In general, a dense object has more power to penetrate because you get more force per square inch with a higher density object of a given mass. But again, this is independent of gravity, so the ratio of density to damage for a given size, mass, and speed of a moving object would be the same on the moon as on earth.

Concerning the question of throwing the object up in the air, Kevin R?s answer is correct, especially on the moon where air resistance is negligible.
wrote...
#5
11 years ago
Gravity isn't the effector here.

I throw a ball at your head, what makes it hurt is the transfer of inertia from the ball into your head. Changing the gravity will change the physics of the transfer, kind of.

The gravity on the moon is 1/6th that of Earth, so I hit you with a 6lbs bowling ball on the moon, it would feel like you where hit with a 1lb ball on Earth.
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smokeyjousmokeyjou
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#6
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11 years ago
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wrote...
#7
11 years ago
Some good answers so far. One point that I would be interested in adding is that if an object were simply dropped on you in a low-gravity environment, the impact would be less as the acceleration of the object is lower, thus it's velocity (and hence momentum) is lower also. By that same token, if you fall from a given height, your impact force would be less in a lower-gravity field.

The best way to describe it is that gravity effects only vertical motion, not horizontal. That why a ball can be thrown farther as it takes more time for it to impact the ground. Having a ball thrown at you is a combination of horizontal and vertical motion, but the horizontal motion is unchanged. Since that's the primary component of ball beaning you, there's perhaps a slight but almost negligible difference in the impact force.

One other factor is the type of collision that happens. A metal ball is likely to produce an elastic collision, which transfers the momentum of the ball just prior to impact to you. A melon's collision is less elastic as it doesn't bounce off of you in the same way. (It keeps some of the momentum if it dents or breaks apart upon collision.) However, as the momentum is practically the same in differing gravity environments, the results of collision are more or less the same regardless of gravity.
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