| MadSci Network: Astronomy |
Can you break the Sound Barrier in space.
There is no sound in space because there is no medium for it to travel through. The speed of sound in a vacuum is zero. Furthermore, sonic booms cannot exist because they are dependent on the buildup of pressure waves in front of a moving object - and with no medium, the pressure waves can't exist either. Since creating a sonic boom is what most people think of as "breaking the Sound Barrier," the answer is NO.
On the other hand, since the speed of sound in space is zero, I guess you could say the answer is YES! You can very easily move faster than the speed of sound!
| Dan Berger | |
| Bluffton College | |
| http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger |
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