A community to discuss space & astronomy through a STEM lens
Also keep in mind, mander.xyz's rules on politics
Please keep politics to a minimum. When science is the focus, intersection with politics may be tolerated as long as the discussion is constructive and science remains the focus. As a general rule, political content posted directly to the instanceβs local communities is discouraged and may be removed. You can of course engage in political discussions in non-local communities.
π Science
π Engineering
π Art and Photography
So the "straight" part is impossible, but otherwise you certainly can. All that matters is "enemies into the Sun".
You could fire somebody straight at the sun but you'd need to launch them so fast they would be instantly vaporized.
You're telling me we can slingshot a satellite around the moon and past Jupiter but hitting the sun is more difficult?
'Difficulty' here is apples and oranges. Energetically more expensive, but less complicated than slingshotting.
Doesn't sound like a problem to me
That would work and also be much faster.
Just fire them at earth-orbit speed in the opposite direction and they'll fall into the sun.
Thatβs a fucload of delta-v. just shoot them out of the solar system. Itβd be cheaper.
Well we've got to get them in the sun somehow
If you don't mind waiting a few thousand years, you can cut the delta-v requirements in half by traveling to the edge of the solar system first and then burning retrograde at aphelion.
Or do like the Parker Solar Probe did and catch multiple gravity assists off Venus.
If you're really hell-bent on burning them up, I suppose you could aim them at some other star.
Or chuck them into an active volcano.
I mean, the idea was to try to fulfill both the "fire them into the Sun" and "minimize βV" requirements at the same time, but sure, that's an option too.
Eh, just burn them in the volcano. The requirements are easier, and the Earth will eventually get burned up by the Sun anyway.
Nah, just aim them for the sun and hope for the best.
They'll be dead due to lack of oxygen within a few days anyways, does it matter if their stinky corpses get burned up in the sun or not?
Why bother to send them in a sealed vessel.
Why, the pretense of hope of course!
Then livestream their evil little faces as they realise they're about to run out of oxygen and there's nothing they can do about it π
βJustβ
Opposite direction? The earth is traveling at 67,000 mph. Opposite direction will require canceling out that energy first.
Yes, that's exactly what we're trying to achieve. Once you cancel that out, the object will fall straight towards the sun.
Would be fine with towards the sun.
Not with that attitude!
You've gotta fire hard enough!
Alright fine. How about near the sun
Best I can do is a crash landing on Venus.
Acceptable.
Idk why it's such a big deal for people to hit the sun in these hypothetical situations. Pretty sure the light radiating from the sun drops off exponentially as a function of distance, so anything getting even remotely "close" (i.e. thousands of kilometers) will still burn to a crisp
It's about sending a message
Correct. But even here at our orbit, the sun is still hot, damn hot. The sunny side of the moon peaks at 250F since there's no atmosphere to dampen the effect. Medium earth orbit is probably enough to get them roasted
We could if we could fire them on some rocket that can reach 30km/s speeds, they would just drift straight into the sun, over time
Just get them to hitch a ride on Disaster Area's stunt ship.
Or just give me a few thousand and I'll make them disappear forever.
Way cheaper and I guarantee it will work.