To calculate the time it would take for a baseball to reach the Sun if thrown at Earth's orbital speed and assuming no air resistance, we need to consider the distance between the Earth and the Sun and the initial velocity of the baseball.
The average distance from the Earth to the Sun, known as an astronomical unit (AU), is approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.
Earth's orbital speed varies slightly throughout the year due to its elliptical orbit, but on average, it is about 67,000 miles per hour or 107,000 kilometers per hour.
Let's convert Earth's orbital speed to meters per second for consistency. One mile is approximately 1,609 meters, so 67,000 miles per hour is roughly 29.9 meters per second.
Assuming the baseball is thrown at this speed, we can calculate the time it would take to travel from Earth to the Sun using the following formula:
Time = Distance / Velocity
Using the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, we get:
Time = 150,000,000,000 meters / 29.9 meters per second
This gives us a rough estimate of:
Time ≈ 5,017,391,304 seconds
Converting this time into years:
Time ≈ 158.8 years
So, if a baseball were thrown at Earth's orbital speed and there was no air resistance, it would take approximately 158.8 years to reach the Sun.