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How far will a bullet travel from a rifle on the moon, given a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second at the perfect 45 degree angle?
With the moons curvature much greater than earth, and 1/6th the gravity... and no atmosphere, how far would the bullet travel? I would venture to guess at least 80 miles, Maybe well over 120 miles. regardless of the weight of the bullet. If you took physics in school you would already realize THAT! Can anyone with fresh training in physics. I know the firing angle would be 45 degrees in a vacuum. On earth Ideal angle would be around 23 or 24 degrees.
2 Answers
- ?Lv 74 years ago
Let's start by assuming a flat surface and constant gravity.
The bullet starts out with vertical velocity 2121 ft/s (and horizontal same).
Decelerating at 32/6 ft/s/s, it takes 398 seconds to reach apex and the same to fall back down.
So it travels horizontally 1687500 feet, about 320 miles.
The maximum height is 1/4 the range, so 80 miles.
The moon's radius is about 1,000 miles. So these distances are not negligible. The bullet would actually stay in flight for a bit longer due to the decreased gravity. Between that and the curvature of the surface, the bullet travels farther than our initial calculation.
I'm not going to attempt the calculus right now, but I'd expect that the bullet travels at least 500 miles.
