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I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Is it really more energy intensive to slow down in mercury's orbit, than escaping the sun's gravity well? If that's true
by m_mueller 13y ago
I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Is it really more energy intensive to slow down in mercury's orbit, than escaping the sun's gravity well? If that's true, can I inflect that the delta between mercury and earth is larger than the delta between earth and infinity, i.e. we are 'more than halfway out' of sun's gravity well in terms of gravitational energy levels?
- T-hawk 13y agoYes. Check the orbital velocities involved. Mercury is 48 km/sec, Earth is 30, and an object at infinity would be zero. Kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared. Square the orbital velocities and you see the Mercury-Earth energy delta is larger than Earth-infinity.
- m_mueller 13y agoThanks. Makes sense of course.