Important scientific question of the day
If you do the latter, Newton’s third law dictates that the force exerted on the bullet will impart an equal and opposite force on the gun, and, because you’re holding the gun, you. With very few intergalactic atoms against which to brace yourself, you’ll start moving backward (not that you’d have any way of knowing). If the bullet leaves the gun barrel at 1,000 meters per second, you — because you’re much more massive than it is — will head the other way at only a few centimeters per second.
Once shot, the bullet will keep going, quite literally, forever. “The bullet will never stop, because the universe is expanding faster than the bullet can catch up with any serious amount of mass” to slow it down, said Matija Cuk, an astronomer with joint appointments at Harvard University and the SETI Institute. (If the universe weren’t expanding, then the one or two atoms per cubic centimeter encountered by the bullet in the near-vacuum of space would bring it to a standstill after 10 million light-years.)…
Speaking of you, you’ll be bobbing through space forever, too.
Blowback
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Ion drive – bring on the ion drive!
OldEnglish on February 22, 2012 at 5:14 PM
Not in the 11th dimension!
profitsbeard on February 22, 2012 at 5:17 PM
Great read, and the astronaut with the AK is priceless.
Meric1837 on February 22, 2012 at 5:17 PM
Eric Holder and Obama would be really pissed.
hepcat on February 22, 2012 at 5:23 PM
If the astronaut uses an AK, the bullet might go on forever, but it has only a random chance of hitting anything…
pseudonominus on February 22, 2012 at 5:24 PM
Looks like Newt Gingrich was right on both counts, you can’t fit a gun rack into a chevy volt, and we need a moon station
Dr Evil on February 22, 2012 at 5:28 PM
Physics is cool.
Badger40 on February 22, 2012 at 5:34 PM
Is Newt short for Newton?
Chip on February 22, 2012 at 5:34 PM
Indeed, it is. Newton Leroy Gingrich.
Good Solid B-Plus on February 22, 2012 at 5:37 PM
If the astronaut is in Earth orbit, then the bullet will not be going fast enough to reach escape velocity. At best it will stay in Earth orbit for a while until the chance collisions with atoms in space slows it down. When it hits the atmosphere, my guess it is small enough that it will reach terminal velocity and drift down to the ground.
pedestrian on February 22, 2012 at 7:10 PM