Adam_Crowl
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Adam_Crowl has not written any posts yet.
Adam_Crowl has not written any posts yet.
First correction, the Sun's luminosity is ~3.827E+26 W, so the falling ice-cube would have a kinetic energy of ~1,000 seconds of solar output. However an object falling into the Sun - such as a 100 km ice-cube - would only release its kinetic energy in such a burst if it was brought to a sudden halt. At 600 km/s the object is a solid surface moving through a fairly diffuse gas - the outer layers of the Sun are thin, hot plasma. A good estimate of the braking effect would be Newtonian Flat Plate drag - i.e. the stuff of the Sun immediately in front of the object is ramming into it,... (read more)
The mass of whatever the impactor is has to be brought to a halt and for a 100 km chunk massing as much as you've computed, that's not happening in an instant in the photosphere of the Sun. Computing exactly how long is a non trivial task and at that speed is more like the injection of a supersonic fluid through a much lower density medium since the internal strength, heat capacity and even the ionization energy of the object is trivial against the kinetic energy it is dissipating.