- A Gun that fires coin-size pellets 10 times faster than
a bullet has been developed in America.
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- The Z accelerator could fire a pellet from London to
Edinburgh in 26 seconds, or from London to New York in four and a half
minutes. It is outpaced only by a nuclear explosion.
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- It has been nicknamed the "fastest gun in the West".
Marcus Knudson, who led the project to develop the Z accelerator at Sandia,
an American nuclear laboratory, said that description was an understatement.
"It's the fastest gun in the world."
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- The aluminium plates it fires move so fast that the air
resistance turns them to liquid, heating them to 2,700C, and forcing Dr
Knudson to look at other materials, such as titanium and copper.
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- It has been used only to examine the effect of high-velocity
projectile impacts over a distance of a few feet, but the technology is
being considered as an alternative to launching spacecraft. A more mobile
version could be a "hyper velocity" weapon, piercing thicker
armour than any used in battle, Dr Knudson added.
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- The accelerator's vacuum chamber is the most powerful
producer of electrical discharge on Earth. It uses 20,000 amps to develop
a magnetic field that accelerates pellets up to 45,000 mph in 200 billionths
of a second, three times faster than the speed needed to escape Earth's
gravitational pull.
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- Dr Knudson is using data from the accelerator to simulate
the effect of space junk colliding with a satellite or space station travelling
in the opposite direction. This will help scientists to balance lightness
with strength in satellite and observatory shells. It is also being used
to find out how materials react to high pressures and temperatures.
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