if you fired a bullet into outspace would it keep going for ever?

Question

would it maintain its speed?say nothing gets in its way would it make it to the sun?

Answer 1

No. It would eventually hit an asteroid, or would start orbiting around a larger object, such as a moon or planet.

Answer 2

The basic answer is yes, it would IF no other object or body influenced it. In actuality a bullet fired within our solar system would have its flight path influenced a great deal by the gravity of the earth, moon, the Sun certainly, and any other rock or molecule it encountered.
A gun does not fire with near enough velocity to escape Earth orbit even if fired from say the Space station! It would likely follow some long looping course (Depending on initial trajectory) that would send it into one of several scenarios.
One could be that you accelerate it in to a higher orbit around earth, another might be it travels into an extreme looping orbit that ends with is crashing back to the earths atmosphere.
There are come complicated mathematics involving Calculus that would accurately predict the result but it would depend on knowing a lot of variables like Caliber of gun, Bullet mass, type of gunpowder, amount of gunpowder, type of gun, length of barrel, Direction aimed relative to other planets, proximity to a planet or star, and many other too numerous to mention.
Bottom Line! In a true vacuum with no gravity influences will adhere to Newtons laws of motion and travel in a straight line unhindered forever. The reality of our universe is a bit different and a little more complicated!

Answer 3

Yo Tube... How's it going?

Your question needs a few Sanity Checks before we can get going on a real answer...

First Check: Most guns fire bullets at a speed of between 600 and 3000 feet per second.

For purposes of discussion, lets take a rifle that fires a real fast bullet at 2500 feet per second. That translates into 2500/5280 = 0.473 miles per second or 0.473 x 3600 = 1,705 Miles Per Hour.
Okay? The velocity required to escape Earth's gravitational pull is 25,000 Miles Per Hour (at least).

Now throw in some friction from dense, medium, and thin atmosphere and the 2500 FPS we originaly had drops off real quick like. Since it was no where near 25,000 Miles Per Hour, the bullet's velocity just isn't anywhere near fast enough to get out there, and with speed loss due to air friction, it is just going to slow down and drop back to earth.

Now if you took that same gun up to the orbiting space station and fired it, that "might" be another question. You asked if it would hit the Sun... Hmm,m. Have you ever heard of orbits and rotational spin? Consider this... The Sun moves across the sky from East To West in about 11 hours (give or take some). So, if you are following me, you would have to "lead" the Sun if you expected to try and hit it. So you would have to calculate where the Sun would be when the bullet arrived so you could point the gun in the proper direction. Also, you could not just fire the gun at any old time of day or night. You would have to fire the gun within a precise window of time when your position relative to the Sun was optimum for a target strike. And, get this, there is a 50-50 chance that the proper time to fire the gun will be at night with the Sun not even visable to you.

Now, tossing aside all the scientific data about the temperature of the Sun and how fast things heat up approaching the Sun, the distance from Earth to the Sun is 93,000,000 miles. Your rifle bullet it traveling at 1705 miles per hour; 40,920 Miles per day.
So the bullet would travel 2,273 Days or 6.23 years to reach the Sun if it was pointed at the right angle and fired at the right time.

And, finally, the Sun has a tremendous heating effect on any and everything. My guess is that the bullet would vaporize about half way into its voyage. The center of the Sun is a toasty 27,000,000 degrees F. Check your home oven dial settings...Yup, that is mighty hot. So your projectile would become many tiny grains or blobs of molten metal long before it ever got close to the Sun. As far as hitting it, there is really not much to actually hit anyway because of all the firey and molten gases that make up the mass of the Sun.

Since you asked the question, let me challenge you to figure out how you would determine the proper angle and direction to fire the gun at, and on what day and time to fire the gun to get the best shot at hitting the Sun (if that were possible). Assume you are outside of the Space Station orbiting the Earth when you fire the rifle. Note: remember the relative angle of the Sun as it sweeps across the horizon is different in the winter than it is in the summer, and that your bullet's flying time is several years.

Finally, in all the preceeding calculations I grossly ignored the gravity of the Sun which is about 25,000 times that of the Earth.
So, in real terms, the flight would be reduced by about 1/4 the flying time due to the Sun's gravity causing it to travel faster and faster. All of this makes for what Astronomers call a real fun calculation ans sould give a few visitors to this site some interesting scrible time.


Regards,
Zah

Answer 4

If you were in outer space and fired a bullet, there would be no air resistance - since it is nearly a vacuum (i.e. no air molecules/particles are present). Therefore, it would keep going forever at a steady speed in a straight. But you would probably lose track of it long before it got to the Sun, and also the gravitational pull of other planets and stars would probably interfere by pulling it towards them. (I'm not entirely sure about it - I haven't done physics for a while so...:D)

Answer 5

It could, if fired fast enough. But fast enough is 25,000 miles per hour, and nothing can penetrate the atmosphere at that speed without burning up. And even that speed would not let you get to the sun -- for that, you need 66,000 mph.

Answer 6

Most bullets, fired from most guns, would not reach a velocity sufficient to leave the gravitational pull of the earth. A combination of friction and gravity would cause them to fall back to earth.

Answer 7

If that were possible to fire a bullet to outer space, it orbit the sun not burn up in its atmosphere

Answer 8

if you were in space and shot then the bullet would keep going but it wold melt before it hits the sun
if you shot it on Earth then it wouldn't even make it outside of the Earth's atmosphere

Answer 9

if you fired it in the vacuum of space there is no friction to slow it down but gravity from a sun or other planet in it's path would bring it down eventually.

Answer 10

Someone who knows physics might know, but I believe it was slow down eventually even before it gets to space. There are different ozone layers in the earth and gases that would probably slow it down or even melt it.