P4_4 Ping Pong to Pluto

Abstract

This paper discusses the energy required to hit a table tennis/ping pong ball out of the Earths atmosphere, to Pluto and back. The findings of this paper concludes that the kinetic energy needed to get the ball out of Earth’s atmosphere is 169kJ and 1.98kJ for the ball to leave Pluto’s atmosphere. This is compared to the kinetic energy transferred into a ping pong ball when being used normally on Earth (1.40 × 10^−3kJ).