why does the earth evolve around the sun and not move towards it or away?

Answer 1

Because of it's velocity. It's the same principle that holds objects in orbit around the earth. The Objects are freefalling towards the ground, but they also have velocity that propels them forward in what, if the earths effect was removed would have been a straight line. As it is it becomes an arc, a sort of parabole. If the initial velocity is great enough the earth will be curving under the object faster than the object is falling towards it, so it will never reach the ground - it goes into orbit.

Answer 2

campelp2002 has it exactly right. The earth DOES move toward and away from the sun a bit during the course of an orbit. If memory serves it's closest to the sun sometime in January. The key to the whole issue is the earth's "sideways" velocity. Also, look for any information you can find about "conservation of angular momentum" and you might gain some other insights. You have a very good question here that can lead in several directions.

Answer 3

Actually, since the Earth's orbit is elliptical, it DOES move toward and away from the Sun every year. The old explanation of an orbit is that centrifugal force balances gravity, but that is not technically correct. It is more like the Earth is constantly falling toward the Sun, but it's sideways motion carries it to one side before it can fall in. Then Earth is off to one side of the Sun, or from the viewpoint of the Earth, the Sun is now in a different direction. So the Earth starts falling in that new direction, but the sideways motion makes it miss again. This goes on forever.

Answer 4

First of all centrifugal force with an "F" does not exist. This is a common misconception. There is such a thing as centripetal force but its is not at all the same as centrifugal force (which is an imaginary, made-up force). The reason the earth revolves around the sun because gravity acts as a force of attraction pulling the earth to the sun. The earth does not fall into the sun because it is moving with a great enough velocity that all that the force of gravity can do is alter the earth's direction of movement.

Answer 5

Mass warps the space around it. If another smaller mass (the Earth) is inside the Sun's warped space, it follows the line of least resistance. It's like putting a bowling ball on a trampoline. Roll a marble across the trampoline towards the bowling ball. If you roll it too fast it'll maybe change its direction a little, but it will roll into and out of the depression caused by the bowling ball and roll to the other side of the trampoline. If you roll the marble at just the right speed, it will fall into the depression and roll around it like a the ball in a roulette wheel before it drops down and hits the numbered grooves. The reason the ball drops down is because friction slows it down. No friction, no slow down. Since there is no friction in space, the ball (the Earth) will always be "in orbit" around the Sun's gravitational well.

Answer 6

The earth 's orbit is a delicate balance btw gravitational pull of the sun and the tangental velocity of earth.

If the sun suddenly dissapeared, there would be no gravitational force acting on the earth. The earth would continue moving in a direction tangent to the orbit at the time the sun disappeared. Look up tangent if you don't know what it means.

If the earth suddenly stopped moving in orbit, it would immediately start moving toward the sun at an acceleration equal to that of the gravitational pull of the sun.

So, the earth (or Something) has stabilized its orbit by balancing the force acting to pull the earth into the sun and the force trying to fling the earth into deep space.

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Follow-up: amen to Alex for the centrifugal force thing. I hate that.
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Answer 7

The earth is very slowly moving towards the sun becuase of the greater force of gravity of the sun attracting the earth. But only small changes occur as there are other forces which counteract this force such as other planets.

Answer 8

This is very simple, and it has everything to do with electromagnetics and how they affect the our solar system, the star systems, and entire galaxies. Scientists know we have a magnetic field, but believe that it has nothing to do with how we orbit the Sun. How can they neglect the electromagnetic relationship, though? Wherever there are magnetic fields in motion, there are electric currents.

This will probably be something completely new to you, that you've never heard about before because the scientific community and NASA and probably even the FreeMasons and Illuminati do a good job of keeping it down, so I'll have to explain a few things. Bear with me though, and I guarantee you the light will turn on in your head.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/magcur.gif

This shows you the right thumb test. Your right thumb points the direction of the current, and the magnetic field spins in the direction your fingers curl. The Sun has an enormous magnetic field, and there is a lot of activity going on with it that shows indications that it's electrified as well. Problems with the current model of the sun as continuous fusion reaction, releasing energy from the core:

Missing neutrinos
Temperature of the halo-like corona is 300 times that of surface
Rotates faster at equator, faster on surface
Solar wind accelerates upon leaving the Sun
Sunspots reveal cooler interior
Sunspots travel faster than surrounding surface
Sunspot penumbra (interior walls) reveal structured filaments

The most detailed pictures ever taken of the Sun reveal the insides of striking snake-like filaments that reach from bright portions of the solar surface into the dark hearts of sunspots. Researchers at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm discussed the images in the journal Nature. One researcher commented: "A dark-cored filament looks like a glowing snake with a dark stripe painted along its back. The 'head' of the snake is often a complicated feature where the stripe splits up among many bright points."

In this picture you can see what the researcher is talking about. The filaments extend out and straddle the sunspot core, and you can see the twisting that is taking place. One thing you need to remember is that this is all just glowing-hot gas.
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sun2.jpg

Another good picture
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sun.jpg

This shows you what is going on with the surrounding surface. You can see how it's being pulled towards the sunspot. These are the pathways the massive currents take towards the sunspot.
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/050617penumbra.jpg

The solar tornado is the primary way that this energy is transferred across the surface of the Sun. This is a good picture of a double-electric bridge across a sunspot. The picture on the right is a demonstration of a firey tornado. The dark stripe down the back of the filaments in sunspot is actually caused by the vortex in the middle of the tornado. Since these solar tornadoes run parallel to the surface, on their side, the dark core appears as a stripe down the back.
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/041015solar-tornado.jpg

So this tells us a lot about the Sun, and our very own planet. The reason why the corona is hotter than the surface of the Sun is because the Sun is like the filament in a light bulb. A massive galactic current passes over the Sun, and the resitance the energy encounters when it gets absorbed by the Sun heats it up and creates light. These sideways tornadoes pull the energy and extra electrons to different areas of the Sun through sunspots. Our very own tornadoes and hurricanes do the exact same thing, except they pull them from the Earth and into space and back to the Sun, or whatever it is that is pulling the electrons away.

So when the galactic current flows in extra hard, the atoms of the Sun give up extra electrons and they come flying out towards the planets in our solar system through the solar "wind" (or current like it really is). We can't tell that this isn't electrically neutral, since the solar wind is so big and the extra electrons per cubic foot are too small a difference for our instruments to detect.

Nevertheless, we should know that it's not electrically neutral by now because we get auroras on our magnetic poles when the solar wind comes in extra strong, and these are most definitely an electromagnetic effect. I'd bet the farm on that prediction.

So what I guess I'm saying is that we're an electrically charged body, and the same currents that feed the Sun also pass through our planet, generating its magnetic field. Since the current on the Sun is greater, and its magnetic field stronger, we orbit it. And that's how that works.

A few other things you might want to check out are:

The massive electric blast that lifted away the northern hemisphere of Mars, and crushed the southern with powerful lightning bolts: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsF42xJOL4GFrPkSU42gwxjsy6IX?qid=20060612222952AAFdmeo

The craters of the Moon, like Tycho. It has impossibly long rays that extend out from it that wrap nearly a quarter of the way around the Moon. Supposedly they were made by material that was blasted out of the crater, but a closer look reveals that this just isn't so.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/LunarRays.gif
Tycho is in the south, and if you look just to the left of the arrow that points to it, you'll see an interesting phenomenon: rays that don't point towards the center of the crater. Instead, they trail all the way back to outer edge of the crater rim, something impossible if they were blown away from the point of impact.

What's actually going on is that the rays were created by streams of electrons travelling the surface of the Moon. Since there is no atmosphere, there is little electrical resistence so they can travel in a straighter line. The crater has a raised mound and a smooth, melted crater floor. This is an example of the same effect on Earth:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/060309lightning.jpg

See the resemblance?

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/060309hubble.jpg

Here's the same effect on Venus:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/060309venus-2.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/060309venus.jpg

Anyways, hope this helped you understand the true nature of EVERYTHING. Double-helix galaxies, just like our DNA, have been spotted out there, shaped by magnetic fields and massive Birkeland currents. This should give you a hint about what that connection is between the small molecule chain and the massive galaxy.

Answer 9

Our seasons are based on earth being angled in direction of the sunlight. If the diploma of inclination replaced, our seasons would substitute as nicely because of the fact the section uncovered to the sunlight, and the dimensions of exposure would substitute.

Answer 10

Because the centrifugal force due to rotation just balance the gravitational pull.