this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Right, I wanted to ask: is that actually the minimum energy to make the child reach the sun? What's the minimum energy to launch something so it reaches the sun?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The minimum would be something like punting your kid to the orbit of Venus for a gravity assist that takes it to one of the outer planets where another gravity assist can push it to the edge of the solar system.
Out there, the angular momentum of the orbiting child will be very low and can be canceled out by a small thrust.
The child will then fall back into the sun. But this requires remote controlled thrusters strapped to the child. And a life support system if you want your child to actually die by burning in the sun. And then, the child will be well into their teens by the time they reach it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Give them time to think about what they did, maybe learn from it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Just tell them to give a small poot on their tenth birthday it's all good

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The speed will be related to escape speed of sun. Based on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity It will be Vte which is 16.6 km/s (or Ve 42.1). So when object at earth orbit and has lower speed than 16.6 it can't keep the orbit and will slowly fall into sun.