27. Can we bounce or jump very high? Can we jump farther in space than on Earth? (A K2S Question)

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Would it be possible to bounce or jump too high on the surface of a planet or the Moon and simply drift away and not be able to get back? How could we still play outside but keep from floating away and getting lost?

If you jump while you are in orbit, you will continue in that direction until you hit something; so yes, you can jump much higher in orbit than on Earth. For big planets or moons, you really couldn't jump fast enough to leave the surface—remember the astronauts who jumped on the Moon? The Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, so you can jump really high there, but you will still come back to the surface. There are small asteroids that would have such a low gravity that you could jump off the surface, but you probably would never go to one to try this.

Answer provided by Byron Lichtenberg, Ph.D.


Image:K2S logosmall.jpg Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer


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