I saw a meme that stated that, if you’re mad at someone, it take less Delta-V to launch them out of the solar system than in does to fire them into the Sun.
Why is that? Wouldn’t the attraction of the Sun’s mass be greater and provide assistance?
In: Physics
Thats not how space works. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but it’s just as hard to get inside a gravity well as getting out of it because space has no friction.
If you orbit something you have a specific energy that keeps you in that orbit. To lower your orbit you need to reduce your kinetic energy, but since you can’t “brake” in space you need to accelerate in the opposite direction. (wich takes energy)
We are already more than halfway out of the suns gravity well, so leaving it is easier than getting to the center.
You can also trick this a bit. If your orbit is very elliptic like one of a comet then it takes only a tiny
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