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Mar7-12, 07:06 PM   #1
 

Ratio of projectile to ejecta mass, shoot the moon.


Say we shoot the surface of the moon with various sized steel balls of size a cm and larger, say up to a km in size. Say the balls hit the surface of the moon moving at 20,000 mph. Is there a simple formula for the mass of the ejecta as a function of the mass of the projectile? Will the formula depend on whether the projectile hits dust or rock or a combination of the two?

Thanks for any help!
 
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