Are we slowly traveling into the sun's gravity? What keeps or holds the planets from the sun distance wise?

Answer 1

The answer to this question was best explained by Isaac Newton in the 1600s. He said: suppose you climb to the top of a tall mountain, and then take a stone and throw it off the top. You will see the stone's path curve downward under the influence of the Earth's gravity, until it hits the slope of the mountain, somewhere below. Then suppose you throw a second stone, but throw it alot harder. It will fall farther down the mountainside. A third stone thrown even harder will fall even farther away. Suppose you threw a stone so hard that as it curved downward toward the Earth, the Earth's own curvature caused the land to fall away just as fast as the stone was falling downward. That would mean that the curve of the falling stone matched the curve of the Earth. What would happen then is that the stone would keep on falling forever, and after awhile, it would circle the entire Earth and come back around and hit you in the back of the head!! This is what is happening when something is "in orbit". It is in continuous free fall, forever and ever. So it is with all orbiting bodies. As it turns out, the tendency of a body to maintain a straight line path is exactly balanced by its tendency to fall into the center of the attracting body. The resulting compromise path is what we call "orbit", and it can go on forever. This is what the Earth and all the other planets are doing around the sun. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Just to be clear, we arn't really being held.


The distance between the sun and the earth is not stable...at all. It varies constantly, as much as a million miles actually.


We don't really stay in orbit XD However, we stay around the same place because our orbit is stable enough that we don't go crashing into the sun. We probably move a little closer to the sun, but its hard to say because the sun is probably losing some mass too (this would counter balance our getting closer to the sun).

And of course the orbit is dictated by gravity. You can apply relativity here but I won't get into that. Just understand that the earth doesn't really stay perfectly in orbit, and it tends to vary, but not enough to cause something bad to happen.

Answer 3

The earth is held away from the sun by its own speed. It is basically falling around the sun and has been for over 4 billion years. The only other thing close enough to effect our path is the moon, and since it's orbiting the earth, the earth-moon system as a whole isn't affected. Same applies for all the other bodies orbiting the sun.

Answer 4

According to Einstein, imagine a flat piece of paper in which is held up on all sides. Now place a heavy object on it so that the paper does not fall or break, you will notice the dip it makes. Imagine that the sun. Now Einstein says that the things that rotate around it are perfectly aligned on the dip it makes and going at the perfect speed to keep it going in the same path

This helps explain black holes, because imagine an object that would rip through the paper, that is a black hole, because it is so dense, and sucks anything within a certain point, down with it. The only problem with that is that it is almost impossible to imagine if you try to determine where the paper is at, or why isn't the paper in any other spots.

Answer 5

i'm basically going to furnish my intestine reaction. have you ever considered those vast funnels interior the Mall which you would be able to drop 1 / 4 into on the desirable? The quarter spins and spins and spins till now ultimately falling into the middle. i'm thinking this is basically the situation with celestial bodies. they're the two falling into the solar in a spiral, or they're shifting remote from the solar in a spiral--interior the comparable way that the Moon is shifting remote from us. i've got not got any medical evidence in the back of this, yet whilst this is authentic i'm particular you will discover some on line. It basically does not look accessible to me that 9 planets have all by some skill discovered equilibrium and could stay in orbit invariably. i think of this is plenty extra possibly that the time that this is taking for them to fall into or remote from the solar is see you later that from our attitude it does not relatively matter quantity. And, maybe they're falling into or away so slowly that the solar will come to an end an incinerate the planets till now their fall is finished.

Answer 6

its the fact that we are in motion moving forward, but the suns gravity pulls us in a little. so if we suddenly stopped orbiting the sun, we would move toward the sun like a magnet. if the sun stopped pulling with gravity, we would shoot out of the solar system leaving the other planets behind. but nothing is perfect and every century i think we slow down by about a second, but it takes millenia for a significant difference.

Answer 7

It's actually basic physics here. For a given orbit, there is only one velocity an object can travel at. Since the Earth is moving at a steady speed, there is only one orbit from the Sun it can occupy.

Answer 8

ok.(oh and hi) if you swing a ball around attached to a string, it keeps going around you and the string stays taunt. If you cut the string the ball flies off. imagine gravity to be the string, our planet is the ball. THE motion of our planet keeps it from falling into the sun, the suns gravity keeps it from sailing off.

Answer 9

probably the gravity of our own planet and the other planets keep us aligned.