Solar Wind Slowing Down Planets, Nuking the Sun, Exomoon Reflection | Q&A 227
Is nuking the Sun a good way to disarm the Earth? Should they rebuild the Arecibo observatory? How will SpaceX Starship change spaceflight? Could we see a reflection of an exomoon in a planet's ocean? Can a heavy suit help fight lower gravity effects on Moon and Mars? All this and more in this week's Q&A.
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Solar Wind Slowing Down Planets, Nuking the Sun, Exomoon Reflection | Q&A 227 (Vimeo)
Comments (4)
Thank you for this delicious video! Your videos pretty much built my understanding of the universe. Don't get upset about astrophysical word salads!
Thanks for the information and video about Arecibo. That grand old telescope was an inspiration to me growing up, not only in its ability to peer deeper into the universe than anything else at the time, but also as an example of international cooperation between nations that didn't always see eye to eye. I seem to recall that James Bond destroyed it once before in Golden Eye. Dreadful movie, but we soaked 'em up. RIP Arecibo.
You wouldn't have to cancel all the orbital velocity to drop into the sun. You'd only need change the orbit of the package you want to drop into the sun such that its lowest point (perigee?) is within the sun. So you don't have to lose velocity, just make the orbit elliptical and intersect with the surface of the sun.
Yeah, you can fly out of the Solar System, almost reach escape velocity and then fall back down. You only need 16 km/s to go that way, but it takes a LONG time.