Re: Sci-Fi movie "Impact"

"Mac Breck" <macthevorlon@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>almost no effect at all.  If it came in at a high enough velocity,
>perpendicular to the plane of our solar system and passed through an
>area where there were no nearby planets, there shouldn't be much of an
>effect at all (perhaps some minor orbit eccentricities).

If it came within 200,000 miles, you can forget about earth being in less
than several pieces afterwards. At that distance, and at the speed an
object tens of times more massive than jupiter would be traveling by the
time it got to the inner solar system (leaving aside the velocity it
already had), the earth would be spit out of the solar system at
ludicruous
speed, if it didn't (much more likely) shatter to bits from tidal effects.

This is a dumb, dumb idea for a disaster movie, unless it ends with
everyone dead and their bodies traveling out of the solar system at near
relativistic speeds. *
-- 
* PV   something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
       like corkscrews.