On 3-7-2012 22:07, Samuel Benge wrote:
> Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
>> Modelling an impact
>
> Hey Thomas, this is quite an interesting series you're working on!

Thanks indeed, Sam. I just want to get away a bit from Gancaloon... ;-)

>
> I'm wondering, does that ejecta seem a bit too grainy? I know there are bound to
> be larger chunks of earth thrown high from such a large impact, though I'm
> pretty sure the majority of particles would be tiny enough to appear as dust
> from that distance.

Yes, I think you are right. I may end up with a combination of chunks 
and dust (mainly dust). That will be a scattering media then; as I have 
already the ejecta geometry, I can easily change that to a container and 
see what results that gives.

>
> Also, is this near the beginning of the LHB? If not, you might want to pock up
> the crust a bit with craters, and dirty up the sky with pulverized earth. Here
> are a couple reference photos of large dust clouds that you might find useful:
>
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/9/25/1253891072286/A-huge-dust-cloud-rolls-o-006.jpg
> http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_03/1DustCloudAP_468x312.jpg

I think that we should keep in mind the time scale of the whole event: 
about 200 million years! That is a period of time equivalent to the one 
since the late Triassic till today! Enough to severely rework the whole 
Earth crust but it means also that the LHB, on a human time scale, was 
not that "apocalyptic" in terms of impact frequencies. However, there 
were of course more large impacts when impacts occurred, but in between 
it would be more or less business as usual (with a lot of stress!). 
Well, my (educated) guess ;-) and a bit of artistic flavour.

For the image, in fact a snapshot somewhere in the middle of the LHB, 
this would mean (old) craters, like the scene shows (I hope) and an 
impact once in a while, meteors streaking past, and a Moon with changing 
molten areas.
>
> A gigantic meteoroid illuminating a dust cloud would be a very dramatic sight :)

Interesting... that would indeed be dramatic. I have to think about that 
more...

> (It's too bad nobody has developed a 3D fluid simulator that also exports to a
> POV-Ray df3 file. We've got a bunch of POVvers around here who are also talented
> programmers... we need more utilities! :D )

Hear! Hear!

Thomas

Post a reply to this message