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It's a misconception that shooting things to the Sun is easy, it's actually extremely difficult due to the fact that when you launch off of the Earth, after esc
by chomp 5y ago
It's a misconception that shooting things to the Sun is easy, it's actually extremely difficult due to the fact that when you launch off of the Earth, after escaping Earth's gravity you're left with ~30km/s of leftover momentum that you have to do something with in order to not wind up in an orbit around the Sun.
- gregw134 5y agoWhy can't you just aim for a direct hit at 30km/s?
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoThe exact same reason why planets don't immediately fall into the sun
- Denvercoder9 5y agoThe momentum you inherit from Earth isn't in the direction of the sun, but roughly perpendicular to that direction. It's similar to a car going down the freeway at high speed that needs to make an immediate 90 degree right turn. It can't do that without slowing down first, if it did, it would slide sideways off the sideroad. It's harder in space because the car is going 30 km/s and there's no friction that slows you down.
- andyjohnson0 5y agoThat's not how orbital mechanics works. Objects move in elliptical orbits around the sun, not in straight lines. https://space.stackexchange.com/a/45619 https://space.stackexchange.com/a/45619
- djupblue 5y agoImagine sitting on a huge carousel spinning fast, like 100 times the speed of sound fast. Now imagine jumping off and trying to get to the center of it. Yes, gravity is holding us back from yeeting of into space but to get closer to the sun you need to slow down. A lot. It takes way less rocket fuel to speed up enough to leave the solar system than to get to the sun.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]