How Far Would a Home Run Travel on Every Planet in our Solar System?
What would happen if you hit a baseball on Mars? Would a home run fly farther on the Moon? Could you even play baseball on Jupiter or Saturn?
As the author of Martian Baseball League, a middle-grade novel that imagines baseball on Mars, I have been fascinated me by this idea. But why stop at Mars? Let’s take baseball across the entire solar system.
The Real Home Run Used for This Experiment
If we are going to do this experiment, then we might as well use a mammoth home run as a control, so I’ve selected this Shohei Ohtani 469-foot home run, which he blasted in game 4 of the 2025 NLCS on October 17, 2025. This incredible home run cleared Dodger Stadium and was hit with an exit velocity of 116.9 mph and a launch angle of 33 degrees.
How Home Runs Change on Other Planets
Ohtani’s home run flight on each planet depends on two things:
Gravity — how strongly a planet pulls the ball downward
Atmosphere — how much air resistance slows it down
Using values from NASA (and a little help from Google Gemini), I applied a physics model that includes gravity and air drag, calibrated to match Ohtani's 469-foot Earth home run, then recalculated the same swing on every planet and Earth’s Moon. These numbers show how dramatically baseball changes once you leave Earth:
How Far Would a Home Run Travel on Mars?
Mars is one of the best places in the solar system for baseball.
Its gravity is only 38% of Earth’s, and its atmosphere is extremely thin. That means baseballs fall slowly and face very little air resistance. As a result, the same swing that sends a ball 469 feet on Earth would launch it over 2,100 feet on Mars — nearly half a mile.
That’s why baseball on Mars is such a powerful idea. The game would feel familiar, but home runs would be spectacular. This idea is the foundation of my novel Martian Baseball League, where kids grow up playing the game under Mars’s low gravity and wide-open skies.
Why the Moon Is the Ultimate Home Run World
The Moon is even more extreme.
With only one-sixth of Earth’s gravity and virtually no atmosphere, a baseball barely slows down at all. A home run would travel over 5,400 feet — more than a full mile!
Every decent hit would be a moonshot in the literal sense.
Why Venus Is the Worst Place for Baseball
Venus may have gravity similar to Earth, but its atmosphere is crushing — about 92 times thicker than Earth’s. That creates enormous air resistance.
Ohtani’s home run on Venus would be smothered almost instantly, traveling only about 31 feet. That’s shorter than a Little League infield.
Could You Play Baseball on Jupiter or Saturn?
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune don’t have solid surfaces — they’re giant balls of gas. But if humans built floating cities in the clouds (like in Star Wars), baseball might be possible.
Jupiter has brutal gravity, so home runs would be shorter than on Earth. However this does not account for winds on Jupiter where the average wind speed is 250–300 mph! This would change that number dramatically depending on which way the wind is blowing. If the wind was blowing out, the ball would travel over 2,300 feet. If it's blowing in, the ball would go backwards 750 feet!
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would also lose some HR distance, but not as much as Jupiter. Plus the Saturn sky––with it's rings overhead––would make a great backdrop for a baseball game.
Want to See Baseball on Mars Come to Life?
If you enjoy imagining home runs on Mars, you’ll love Martian Baseball League — a middle-grade novel that blends baseball, space, and science into an adventure about kids playing the game on the Red Planet.
The book is available on Amazon in eBook, paperback, and hardcover.
You can also follow me on TikTok (@professorbaseball) for more baseball content.