this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago (46 children)

Why is that - wouldn't you be working against solar gravity? Like you don't have to get them there quickly, just launch them in some orbit that will decay and be taken in?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why would an orbit decay without something to slow the spacecraft down like an atmosphere? The problem is that any object we launch from earth has a lot of orbital velocity, which makes it almost impossible to hit the sun directly, you would have to use a lot of complex gravity assists from the inner planets to take away enough momentum. Using gravity assists to accelerate outwards is much easier

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why do you need to hit the exact center of the sun to have the desired results? Get it within the orbit of Mercury and I'll be happy enough.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's what the premise of this post was. It's a common saying to "shoot something into the sun", which sounds easy at first but is actually quite hard to do. That's the joke

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My argument is it's more energy efficient to shoot something towards the sun that will have the same result as hitting the sun than it is to get it out of the solar system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It's just not true though, unless you do an out then in maneuver.

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