Very rough Google math (mostly because of “fuzzy” answers on the energy required and how you define space) suggests that the 1980 Mt St Helens eruption had enough energy to orbit three billion kilos…
I based that on the eruption being rated at 24MT, which converts to 100b MJ, and a minimum of 30MJ/kg being enough for orbit. Didn’t find a straight answer on escaping the gravity well, could be way higher.
That doesn’t seem right to me, but that eruption did, in fact, move the entire top of a mountain a pretty silly distance, so as ridiculous as it sounds, it could be accurate? I mean… 500 billion KGs of ash was spit out of it…
That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever googled i think. I feel like I don’t actually want to know the actual math on this. It’s fucking plausible dude.
Very rough Google math (mostly because of “fuzzy” answers on the energy required and how you define space) suggests that the 1980 Mt St Helens eruption had enough energy to orbit three billion kilos…
I based that on the eruption being rated at 24MT, which converts to 100b MJ, and a minimum of 30MJ/kg being enough for orbit. Didn’t find a straight answer on escaping the gravity well, could be way higher.
That doesn’t seem right to me, but that eruption did, in fact, move the entire top of a mountain a pretty silly distance, so as ridiculous as it sounds, it could be accurate? I mean… 500 billion KGs of ash was spit out of it…
That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever googled i think. I feel like I don’t actually want to know the actual math on this. It’s fucking plausible dude.