Posted on 07/20/2021 7:50:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
Summertime means it’s time to play ball! But what would it be like to play ball on various locations across our Solar System? Planetary scientist Dr. James O’Donoghue has put together a fun animation of how quickly an object falls on to the surfaces of places like the Sun, Earth, Ceres, Jupiter, the Moon, and Pluto.
The animation shows a ball dropping from 1 kilometer to the surface of each object, assuming no air resistance. You can compare, for example, that it takes 2.7 seconds for a ball to drop that distance on the Sun, while it takes 14.3 seconds Earth.
“This should give an idea for the pull you would feel on each object,” O’Donoghue said.
But what about the pull of gravity on the big planets vs. Earth? Interestingly enough, it takes and 13.8 seconds for the ball to drop on Saturn, and 15 seconds on Uranus.
“It might be surprising to see large planets have a pull comparable to smaller ones at the surface,” O’Donoghue said on Twitter. “For example Uranus pulls the ball down slower than at Earth! Why? Because the low average density of Uranus puts the surface far away from the majority of the mass. Similarly, Mars is nearly twice the mass of Mercury, but you can see the surface gravity is actually the same… this indicates that Mercury is much denser than Mars.”
Ceres comes in at the pokiest place to play ball, with a ball dropping 1km in 84.3 seconds.
O’Donoghue, along with input from astronomer Rami Mandow, used a NASA planetary fact sheet for reference to create the video.
O’Donoghue also referenced one of the most famous gravity experiments ever conducted, the one by astronaut Dave Scott on the Moon:
If you drop a feather and a hammer on the Moon from the same height at the same time, both land simultaneously. This is because without significant air resistance, all objects fall at the same rate (regardless of mass)
? Apollo 15 Commander David Scott pic.twitter.com/wC6dg8QgdL
— Dr. James O'Donoghue (@physicsJ) July 11, 2021 O’Donoghue has a number of great videos on his YouTube channel, including a visualization of the velocities required to escape the pull of gravity from various bodies in the Solar System.
VIDEO AT LINK.........................
They should do training for Olympic Athletes on Jupiter
Gravity Falls Ping!.........................
“assuming no air resistance”
That’s a fair assumption everywhere but earth.
venus has higher pressure atmospheric resistence than earth even though it has less mass. Lack of oxygen does not = lack of resistence
This reflects something fascinating I learned earlier this year: the surface gravity of Uranus, despite its great size, is LESS than that of Earth. I imagine the gravity well covers an amazingly huge volume, so it’s still much harder to launch from Uranus (OK, get the giggles over with), but with such a dense atmosphere, such light gravity, and such massive amounts of water, carbon, etc., just think of what could be constructed there.
Where do you find the gaseous mixture “air”?
Gravity RULES!
Does Saturn have a surface?
It must have some sort of surface, else it wouldn’t have any mass hardly....................
In order to travel Space-Time, we must repeal the Law of Gravity...................
Not on the Gas Giants, Mars or Venus................
So it’s not a ball the size of the solar system, that you are pounding us all with. Whew!!
Galactic dodge ball! The only way to win is not to play.
Uranus will be the second home of Earth people when the Sun becomes a Red Giant......
Oh fine! I just lost weight and now you want to go and repeal the law of Gravity.
Where were you 20 years ago?
We've got to change the name before then or a lot of people are going to burn.
LOL
I don’t think I’ve seen that. What is that from?
Rip Torn as Coach: If you can doge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!...........
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