TIL that it takes less energy to launch something out of the solar system than directly into the sun. Apparently its because the massive gravity of the Sun causes objects to orbit instead of pulling objects into itself. Why?

Question

TIL that it takes less energy to launch something out of the solar system than directly into the sun. Apparently its because the massive gravity of the Sun causes objects to orbit instead of pulling objects into itself. Why?

In: Physics

Answer 1

The distance of the orbit is based on the speed. It takes less energy to go from earth speed to escape speed than to go from earth speed to 0 (compared to sun speed).

Think of those things where coins spin around cone shaped thing until they fall into a hole. If you had two coins together (earth and a rocket) and you released one coin with very little energy the coins would follow similar paths. To get the released coin to fall right into the hole it would need a strong boost off of the other coin to cancel out all of its speed. If that same amount of speed were used to speed the coin up instead of stopping it the released coin would shoot out of the cone.