Microblog post

Rockets! 🚀

The general idea is to shoot stuff (propellant) really fast out the back of your engine. We can thank Newton’s 3rd law of motion for moving us in the other direction. This is true for rockets and jet engines. Jet engines are air breathing engines. Rockets aren’t.

The quick description of (chemical) rockets is that we take the propellant and start a chemical reaction in it. This reaction releases energy in the chemical bonds and heats up the byproducts. The hot byproducts shoot out of the back through a specially designed nozzle, which pushes the rocket in the other direction. So easy!