Throwing a baseball is regular until it is going to the moon.
Astronomer James O’Donoghue did all the math and made a video, showing a ball being thrown on each planet, Pluto and the Moon.
“We’re only currently able to experience outer space through images and video, so this style of video is designed to add more to the experience, namely the sensation of the forces on these other worlds,” O’Donoghue, who works at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, told Insider via email.
“We’re throwing this ball at about the maximum speed that an average person can throw… without practice, according to various sources on the internet (mainly baseball sources),” he said.
Gravity determines how far the ball goes. Density also plays quite a vital role.
“For example, Saturn has 95 times more mass than Earth, but it is the least dense planet in the Solar System,” O’Donoghue said. “So when you’re on the edges of [Saturn], the force of gravity pulling you in [is] actually weaker than on Earth.”
An intriguing throw happens on Pluto, the small ice ball of a former planet.
At just two-thirds the diameter of our Moon, Pluto has such weak gravity that your baseball could clear the 455-foot-tall Great Pyramid of Giza – with room to spare.
In the end, the ball on Pluto would travel 16 times farther than on Earth.
“It makes me wonder how boring it would be to trip over after running on that world as an astronaut,” he said.