why it is much more difficult to send a satellite to the sun than it is to send it outside the solar system.

809 views

A friend told me that with the current engineering we cannot send a satellite to the sun (just reaching it, not survival) because we would have to nullify the velocity of earth with respect to the sun. I’m not sure I understand and not sure if that is true.

In: Physics

12 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Pretend you’re in a moving car, and you throw a ball forward out of the car. The speed of your throw is added to the speed of the car and it moves forward until air resistance and gravity slow it.

Now you throw an identical ball backward. The speed of your throw is subtracted from the speed of the car and it moves forward until air resistance and gravity slow it.

The same thing happens when launching a vehicle (ball) from earth (car), except in space you can pretty much ignore resistance and gravity as we understand them on earth **and** speed moves you away from the sun while slowing down moves you toward it.

You are viewing 1 out of 12 answers, click here to view all answers.