Falling through the Solar System at an astonishing 635,266 kilometers (394,736 miles) per hour, NASA's Parker Solar Probe has just smashed the record for fastest object ever to be created by human hands.

Falling through the Solar System at an astonishing 635,266 kilometers (394,736 miles) per hour, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has just smashed the record for fastest object ever to be created by human hands.

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
    231·
    9 months ago

    One the most counter-intuitive facts about the solar system is that the hardest place to visit is the Sun. It takes less energy (delta-V) to send a probe on its way to Alpha-Centuri than to the sun.

    • MD756@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 months ago

      Can you expand? Is it just because close proximity to the sun is so hostile? Takes more fuel to counter the sun’s “headwind?”

      • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
        15·
        9 months ago

        The earth is moving at great speeds around the sun. If you want to go to the sun, you have to brake an equivalent amount. Otherwise you’d just orbit the sun (like the earth does).

        So if you want to go to the sun from the earth, first you have to escape the earth, and then you have to counter all its speed.

      • meyotch@slrpnk.net
        9·
        9 months ago

        I don’t want to talk over the original comment, but I believe they were speaking specifically of delta-v, which is ‘change in velocity’. So you have to burn more fuel to visit the sun than you need to go the other way and leave the solar system.