Why Is It Harder to Reach the Sun Than to Leave the Solar System?

The Sun holds 99.8% of the Solar System's mass and pulls on everything, yet hitting it is one of the hardest trips in spaceflight. In 1973, NASA engineers worked out that crashing a package into the Sun needed nearly three times the rocket boost of throwing it out of the Solar System altogether. Why? The answer is that we're all already moving sideways around the Sun at nearly 30 km/s. In this video we price both trips, follow Parker Solar Probe as it uses Venus as a brake on its way to the fastest speed any human-made object has reached, look at why reaching Mercury takes more energy than reaching Pluto, and ride along with the Voyagers as Jupiter flings them out to interstellar space. We also look at whether they've actually "left" yet, ahead of Voyager 1 reaching one light-day from Earth on 18 November 2026 (9:16 pm Tasmania time). Every claim is sourced on screen and listed below. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 Cold open: the bin in the sky 0:56 You're already moving 2:01 Two directions, two price tags 3:39 Braking with Venus 5:45 Mercury: harder than Pluto 6:32 Leaving: Voyager's slingshot 8:04 Have they actually left? 9:29 The shortcut to the Sun runs through Jupiter 10:11 The answer 📚 Sources [S1] NASA, It's Surprisingly Hard to Go to the Sun (2018): https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its... [S2] NASA, 10 Things to Know About Parker Solar Probe: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/par... [S3] NASA, Parker Solar Probe Makes History With Closest Pass to Sun (Dec 2024): https://science.nasa.gov/science-rese... [S4] Johns Hopkins APL, Parker closest approach (Dec 2024): https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-rele... [S5] NASA Parker blog, 29th close approach (Sep 2026): https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/parker... [S6] NASA NSSDCA, Earth Fact Sheet: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary... [S7] NASA NSSDCA, Sun Fact Sheet: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary... [S8] NASA TM X-68211 (1973), Extraterrestrial Disposal of Radioactive Waste: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19730... [S9] NASA/JPL Basics of Space Flight, Ch. 3 (Newton's cannon): https://science.nasa.gov/learn/basics... [S10] NASA/JPL Basics of Space Flight, Ch. 4 (Trajectories & gravity assists): https://science.nasa.gov/learn/basics... [S11] NASA Glenn, Ideal Rocket Equation: https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-g... [S12] ESA, BepiColombo: Journey to Mercury: https://www.esa.int/Science_Explorati... [S13] ESA, BepiColombo factsheet: https://www.esa.int/Science_Explorati... [S14] NASA, Voyager Fact Sheet: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voya... [S15] NASA, Voyager 2 Enters Interstellar Space (2018): https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nas... [S16] NASA, Voyager 1: What Is a Light-Day?: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voya... [S17] NASA, Where Are Voyager 1 and 2 Now?: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voya... [S18] NASA/JPL, Deep Space Station 43 upgrade (2020): https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-faci... [S19] NASA, New Horizons launch (2006): https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nas... [S20] NASA, New Horizons Jupiter boost (2007): https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nas... [S21] NASA SVS, It's Surprisingly Hard to Go to the Sun (video): https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13017/ Figures marked "Our calc, NASA data" are our own two-body calculations from the NASA fact sheets above (method in the pinned comment). 🎙️ Narrated with a synthetic (AI) voice. Researched, written and fact-checked against the sources above by The Curious Atlas. Orbit diagrams and scale visuals are our own animations. Photos are public-domain NASA images, credited on screen. No AI-generated images. 💬 Got a question about the world (or beyond it) you want us to chase down? Leave it in the comments. Previous episode: Who Actually Owns Antarctica?:    • Who Actually Owns Antarctica?   Next episode: A Telescope Buried Under the Ice Just Won a Nobel Prize:    • Видео   More from The Curious Atlas:    / @curiousatlas42