explaining astronomy to an American: "Imagine a standard 12 ounce can of high fructose corn syrup..."
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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...can something (naturally occurring) that small really be that dense?
EDIT: I calculated for ONE baby elephant and forgot it was supposed to be THREE!! lol it's even more implausible. fixed
no, a naturally occuring asteroid could not be that dense. According to the given "units" the asteroid would be over 30 times heavier than the densest stable element.
using some quick values from a search engine: a 12 oz beverage can holds 355 mL, I'll round up to 360 mL.
thanks to AI slop & the internet being shitty now it's harder to find a good baby elephant weight (almost like it's a shit unit!). I'm going to go with 220 pounds. 220 pounds = 100 kg
so the density is 300/360 or 0.833 kg/mL, or 833g/cm^3^
osmium is the densest stable element at 23 g/cm^3^
Just your typical every day asteroid made of neutron removed matter, nothing to see here
*edit: cmon hexbear, that's not how that word works
d*g*n*r*te
Thank you 
833g/cm3
That's a pretty dense asteroid
For a comparison, the core of the sun has 150g/cm³. The closest thing I could find was the stellar core of a star with 0.1 solar masses, which is 500g/cm³. Apparently the density in the core increases as mass decreases, at least for main sequence stars, the other stars seem to work differently and can get higher in another scale.
What if America has really big dr pepper cans. Or.maybe they're referring to the actual doctor
That's if it is naturally occurring...
there's a joke in here about short king libs but I can't quite find it
pop science articles in the US are always crazy. let me distill it:
the takeaway message here is that all 6 and 12 packs of Dr. Pepper and Diet Dr. Pepper are now Buy One Get One Free at participating CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens.
Stop by today and rent Top Gun: Maverick for $1!
Ha ha "pop" science, I get it...
So the actual news here is the incredible margin of error, because this is physically impossible.
It's Dr. Pepper sized, not a can of Dr. Pepper. We're good.
Why does it have to be Dr Pepper? I'm pretty sure all pop cans are mostly the same?
Dr Pepper because they're using scientific units
From the same country that elected Trump... the Dr. Pepper measurement system is nothing compared to it
So that meteor is as big as several McDonald's chicken nuggets. Damn.
Let's pray it lands on a CyberTruck, it is the only thing strong enough to withstand the impact.