You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
23 points

Huh. I would have thought that once they break orbit that the sun’s gravity well would do the heavy lifting pulling.

permalink
report
reply
16 points

Imagine that you’re standing on a train and have a baseball. If you throw the ball off the train, the ball will still have momentum in the direction of the train’s movement.

If you want to throw the ball to a friend the train just passed, you have to be able to throw the ball faster than the train is moving or it will never reach them.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Now all im imagineing is a ball floating mid air and it’s beautiful

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Mythbusters did this! (Well, the ball fell to the ground, but for a split second it looked like it was hovering after being shot out of a cannon.)

permalink
report
parent
reply
36 points

If you care to learn orbital mechanics, Kerbal Space Program is a great teacher.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

That one’s been sitting unplayed in my library for a very long time. I guess it’s time to give it a shot.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

And if you want more complicated orbital mechanics there’s a ksp mod: Principia which adds n-body orbital mechanics over ksp’s relatively simple patched conic orbital simulation.

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points

“Breaking orbit” still leaves you in almost the same orbit around the sun as the earth. You need to slow down a lot to bring the periapsis of the orbit within the suns surface.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points
*

once you break out of earth orbit you are now in an orbit around the sun, similar to earths.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

The vessel would still have a lot of speed after escaping earth’s orbit, so the trajectory would become a large orbit around the sun. You still have to slow down by about ~30km/s (or ~100 000 km/h) to make that orbit intercept with the sun’s surface.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Science Memes

!science_memes@mander.xyz

Create post

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don’t throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

Community stats

  • 11K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.2K

    Posts

  • 51K

    Comments