Because if you launch something from Earth, you inherit the Earth’s orbital speed around the Sun. At that point, whatever you launched, will just continue to orbit the Sun. It takes less energy to accelerate to a solar system exit trajectory than it does to scrub off all of the excess velocity and end up on a trajectory that intersects the Sun.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
But does it matter what speed the garbage is going at when it hits the sun?
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 month ago
No, but it’s going too fast sideways. It would miss the sun. You need to slow it down by the same apeed that Earth is moving, stopping its sideways motion and letting it drop into the sun.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
But do you need to slow it down all the way? Can’t you just slow it down enough to get the ball in an elliptical orbit where the trash ball gets very close to the ball of plasma?
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
The problem is slowing it down to any speed that would end up with it dropping into the sun is going to take more effort and be more difficult than firing it out of the solar system. It isn’t practical.
DeLacue@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Space is big. It’s so big that our tiny ape brains have a hard time conceiving of how big it is. The sun is actually (despite it’s size) a relatively small target and is very very far away. Now the more delta-V you burn to slow the trash down the smaller its orbit around the sun will be. But that orbit starts enormous. So to get that purple line near the sun you do need to slow down almost the whole way, just to get it close.