If not, what happens to it? And if so, could it kill someone?
2006-06-23 08:29:36 · 15 answers · asked by disorder74 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
Not necessarily. If your theoretical gun shoots a bullet that reaches escape velocity [1] (the speed something needs to travel to beat Earth's gravity), it can overcome the Earth's gravity [2] and fly off into space.
However, I know of no such gun. Only rocket engines [3] are able to do this, because they sustain and increase their speed by burning fuel. A bullet has nothing to keep its speed up once it leaves the gun.
So the answer is, "Yes, the bullet comes back down." The bullet is always beholden to gravity, even before it's fired. You can view gravity as an invisible string always pointing to the center of the earth, always being pulled. The instant the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun, it will be constantly slowing down due to gravity (and air resistance).
Another interesting idea is this: If you were to take a gun and fire it horizontally, and at the same instant drop a rock from the same height as the gun, which would hit the ground first? The bullet or the rock?
The answer is that they both would hit the ground at the same time. The bullet would just be several hundred feet away when it hits. Both are affected by gravity's pull, and approach the ground at the same speed.
2006-06-23 08:37:16 · answer #1 · answered by Eric G 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Maybe the questioner is wondering whether the bullet will escape the earth's gravity and go into space instead. Well the answer is no.
A bullet from an AK-47 leaves the muzzle of the gun at 710 m/s and from that point is continually decellerated at 9.81m/s/s. Using the calculation v^2 = u^2 + 2as, the bullet reaches a height of 25693 metres, which is approx 26km, which is not high enough to not come down again, considering that the space station orbits at over 350km.
So yeah, the bullet comes down again and could easily injure or kill someone.
2006-06-23 08:40:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes the bullet comes back down....it killing someone depends on if you shoot it exactly straight up, and i mean exactly it will not kill anyone b/c its not going fast enough do to terminal velocity, it actually would do less damage than a BB gun shot at close range, but if you're off by even a little bit from straight up it would retain its speed due to being on whats called a ballistic trajectory, and could kill someone, so if you want to celebrate and shoot a gun off do it at a range or aim down towards the ground
2006-06-23 08:45:11 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can't shoot a gun. You shoot bullets.
What goes up must come down.
2006-06-23 08:33:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Last New Years eve a woman in town was hit by a bullet someone shot up into the sky, it didn't kill her but it wounded her badly. The shooter was of course drunk.
2006-06-23 09:56:24 · answer #5 · answered by Dee_Dee 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Conventional bullets normally travel anywhere from 200m/s to 1800m/s...as long object is not traveling at the speed of 7200m/s (roughly the escape velocity)...bullet has to fall back on earth.
2006-06-23 08:46:05 · answer #6 · answered by Dil 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It does, and it has. I read a case where this happened in Pakistan when Muslims were shooting off their guns into the air (in celebration).
2006-06-23 08:33:08 · answer #7 · answered by seek_out_truth 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just happened to see your name with a question...1st: you spell "strait" like straight 2nd: Of course it would come back down...where else would it go????
2006-06-23 11:19:29 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, gravity works. If it fell down, it could theoretically kill, if it fell from high enough a point
2006-06-23 08:48:30 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sure it will come back down unless you hit a bird or a plane!
2006-06-23 08:34:10 · answer #10 · answered by southernlisa37 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋