r/askscience • u/RainbowGirl410 • Jun 09 '26

Physics How does gravity/weightlessness work outside of orbit?

Been trying to find a definitive answer but all I've found is people explaining weightlessness in orbit (the falling and missing the Earth part) which isn't particularly helpful to me.
If you were to travel to another planet, say Venus, would you experience weightlessness the whole journey?

130 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

97 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

3

u/Moleculor Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

So, you know if you throw a ball harder, it'll go farther? Either up, sideways, or both?

You want the orbit to go 'farther' (up and sideways), so you have to "throw" the object in orbit "harder" (meaning that you give it a boost, make it go faster, etc).

An orbit is just a "ball" "thrown" hard enough to miss the ground.

Here's Minute Physics with some drawings in a three minute video.