How come the Earths orbit has not been effected by the expansion of the universe? Or has it?
2006-06-17 13:48:31 · 14 answers · asked by Ballzy 6 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Your thinking is good, but you have to take into account the distance scales involved. On the scale of the entire universe, space is indeed expanding, but on the relatively tiny scale of distances in our solar system, the expansion is miniscule. Also, the gravitational forces involved with holding the planets in their orbits around the Sun easily overcomes the expansion rate.
2006-06-17 14:00:59 · answer #1 · answered by Chug-a-Lug 7 · 10⤊ 2⤋
No. If two objects are gravitationally bound together, they stay together; the gravitational attraction between them is just a little bit less than it would be without the Hubble expansion of space. Even the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, 2 million light years apart, stay bound together. But the Milky Way and the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, 20 million light years away, are not gravitationally bound, so the Virgo Cluster are receding from us. Regarding the previous answer about the Monty Python song, the most important part of the song is the ending; And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space 'cos there's bugger all down here on Earth.
2006-06-17 15:11:15 · answer #2 · answered by zee_prime 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Earth is actually moving a little closer to the sun with each year that passes. The expansion in the universe occurs between galaxies, the galaxies remain more or less the same size but move apart from one another at a somewhat alarming rate.
2006-06-17 14:02:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. The sunlight and the Earth are gravitationally certain and could no longer waft far flung from one yet another with the aid of Universe's boost (although the Earth's orbit is theoretically somewhat greater than it in any different case could be). they'll, even however, ultimately the two decay into photons and leptons or be sucked right into a black hollow which will ultimately explode, and the subject and capacity contained in them will then be dispersed in the process the Universe and waft aside with the aid of fact the Universe expands. This capacity will no longer be recognizable with the aid of fact the sunlight and the Earth at this factor however.
2016-10-31 01:42:29 · answer #4 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No ... the expansion of the entire universe has very little effect in comparison to the gravitational pull exerted upon it by the sun and other "much closer" planets. It is like pouring one tiny packet of salt into the ocean as a means to shift the entire salinity level of that ocean (relating the expansion of the universe to its effect upon the earth's position).
2006-06-17 14:01:08 · answer #5 · answered by icehoundxx 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a song from Monty Python: Just remember that your standing on a planet that's evolving, revolving at 900 miles an hour. It's orbiting at 90 miles a second, so it's reckond, a sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, are travelling at a million miles a day....in an outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour, in the galaxy we call the milky way.
Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars, it's 100,000 light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick, but out by us it's just 3,000 lightyears wide.
We're 60,000 lightyears from galatic central point, we go round every 200 million years......and our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe.
The last line doesn't ryme but it's still really cool. We and the other planets (like out to pluto) circle the sun. That's our solar system. Our solar system travelles (in an outer spiral arm) in our galaxy. Our galaxy is moving so many 100,000 miles an hour, but so are all the other galaxies. But each galaxy is also getting further away from eachother.
Draw a bunch of circles on a piece of paper. These are the galaxies. If they are all moving really fast, but also moving away from one another and you expand that out it ends up looking like an explosion (big bang). So in the wake of this explosion,(in such a gigantic span of time....billions of years) while we are still moving from this explosion, planets have formed, life, the human race has evolved (and will probably die out) while we are still being thrown through the universe from this explosion......neat.
2006-06-17 14:52:22 · answer #6 · answered by send_felix_mail 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
From our observations we do see the universe expanding, but this is only in areas where the force of gravity between two objects is not strong enough, as a function of the distance between them, to overcome this expansion and stay together, collide, or revolve around one another.
2006-06-17 14:04:47 · answer #7 · answered by Chris 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no it doesnt... becuse the universe is expanding but the planets r staying together becuse of the pull of the sun we stay together.......but expansion of the universe could not always be happening....i read in this book one day maybe instead of expanding it might close back together in to one ball again.....but its just a theory
2006-06-17 15:00:25 · answer #8 · answered by koda 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Or does it mean that the sun is moving away from the Earth? Everything is moving away from everything.
2006-06-17 14:02:55 · answer #9 · answered by MartyCessna 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
lol
No, everything is moving, including our solar system.
We go around the sun, the sun is going around the galaxy that we are part of, and the galaxy is moving away from the point of the big bang.
2006-06-17 13:55:27 · answer #10 · answered by tattie_herbert 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋