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
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    1 year 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
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      1 year 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
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        151 year 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        91 year 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.

  • @Feathercrown
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    41 year ago

    We really need to stop verbing nouns (“blazes”? Really?) but this is cool

    • @SalamendaciousOP
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      101 year ago

      What’s the matter you’ve never elbowed your way through a crowd? Pencil in a meeting? Or maybe buttered your bread? English verbs nouns all the time. BTW verb is a noun. So “verbing nouns” is literally verbing the noun “verb.”

      • @Feathercrown
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        51 year ago

        BTW verb is a noun. So “verbing nouns” is literally verbing the noun “verb.”

        …that’s the point lol

        • @SalamendaciousOP
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          21 year ago

          Well now I feel foolish. That’s okay though because I feel this way frequently. I’m used to it.

          • @Feathercrown
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            1 year ago

            Rip, happens to the best of us. Hope ya feel better

      • @Cocodapuf
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        21 year ago

        “Verbing funs English!”

        -Calvin and Hobbes

      • @Feathercrown
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        51 year ago

        I figured someone was gonna btfo me with a dictionary link lmao fair enough

        • @reattach
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          21 year ago

          Haha I was curious myself so looked it up