Even stranger still is the fact that you have more efficiency if you send the probe into the outer solar system first and then try to slow down. The Ulysses probe did this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(spacecraft)

Edit:

> "To fall into the sun a spacecraft would first have to escape the earth's gravity, and then after that slow down almost completely from the earth's orbital speed of about 30 km/s (~70,000 mph) around the sun. A four-stage, 3,000 ton rocket (about Saturn-V size) could only launch about 150 lbs into the sun on a direct trajectory, and it would probably cost a little more than $1 billion."

> "To escape the solar system and fly off into interstellar space, a spacecraft only needs to speed up from earth's orbital velocity by about 40% (instead of reducing it by almost 100% to fall into the sun). The required delta-v would be about 17-18 km/s."

From a simple HTML page with content written by a college professor, my favorite kind of webpage! https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=43694&t=l...