Suppose you were required to use a micrometeorite shield no more than 0.01 meters thick. What would be the required toughness of the material from which that shield was made if the shield must survive a micrometeorite strike without being permanently dented or damaged?

Involve the situation depicted below. Consider a “micrometeorite” to be a piece of mineral that is approximately a sphere of diameter 1.0 × 10^-6 m and of density 2.0 × 10³ kg/m³. It travels through outer space at a speed of 5.0 × 10³ m/s relative to a spacecraft. Your job as an engineer is to provide a micrometeorite shield for the spacecraft. Assume that if the micrometeorite strikes the shield, it affects only a volume of the shield 1.0 × 10^-6 m in diameter and extending through the entire thickness of the shield.

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Shield Diameter = 1 micron Portion of shield affected by the micrometeorite is a cylinder with the same diameter as Micrometeorite the micrometeorite - Thickness, T