Throwing a baseball is a simple task when done on Earth, but imagine throwing a baseball on the Moon—what would happen to the ball? Surprisingly, if you were on the Moon and threw with just a moderate force, you could toss a baseball over the nearly 60-meter tall Leaning Tower of Pisa.
What happens if you throw a baseball on the Moon?
Now, picture yourself on Saturn—what would throwing a ball be like? While no one can verify such an experience, astronomer James O’Donoghue has created calculations and simulations in a video that show how a ball would travel on each planet, such as Pluto, Saturn, or the Moon.
O’Donoghue, who works at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, stated, “Currently, we can only experience outer space through images and videos, so this type of video is designed to enhance that experience, specifically the sense of the forces acting on these other worlds.”
The baseball is thrown at the maximum speed a typical person can achieve. From there, gravity determines how far the ball travels. The gravitational force of a planet comes from its mass, meaning heavier objects have stronger gravitational pulls—but density also plays a crucial role.
For example, Saturn has a mass 95 times that of Earth, yet it is the planet with the lowest density in the Solar System. When you are at the edge of Saturn, the gravitational pull is actually weaker than that on Earth.
This is also why throwing a ball on Saturn is not particularly remarkable. The truly noteworthy throw occurs on Pluto, the small icy sphere that was once classified as a planet. Pluto has a diameter just two-thirds that of our Moon, and its weak gravity means your baseball could soar over the 139-meter tall Great Pyramid of Giza—with room to spare. A baseball on Pluto would travel more than 16 times farther than it would on Earth with the same throwing force.
