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submitted 1 month ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] sushibowl@feddit.nl 14 points 1 month ago

These are all technically correct but fairly inconsequential. Even just to graze the sun you need to lose 90% of your orbital velocity. And although everything orbiting the sun will eventually fall in, the friction is really low. It will take billions of years to lose enough velocity to fall in.

[-] Donjuanme@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago

Billions of years and billions of times less energy, would you agree?

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

If you're willing to settle for that kind of timeline, you could "launch someone into the sun" by just...leaving them on Earth for five billion years. At that point, the sun will become a red giant and probably expand to engulf the Earth.

[-] Donjuanme@lemmy.world -5 points 1 month ago

What does engulfing the earth mean to you? The mass of the sun expanded to a body 1 au would not be very dense. My money says the earth would continue to orbit "inside the sun" for quite a while, but the orbit would degrade more quickly.

But yes, I argue get them out of the earths gravity well and let Newton handle the rest, no reason to propel them in any direction, eventually they'll get to the sun.

[-] Delta_V@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

If the sun became a red giant tomorrow, and Earth found itself inside the outer layers of solar atmosphere, then drag would start slowing it down. In less than 70,000 years, it would fall close enough to the center to be torn apart by tidal forces like one of Saturn's moons (assuming it hasn't already been vaporized).

If we've already waited 5 billion years to have our revenge, whats another 70k? The lowest amount of Delta V we can spend on this project is zero.