Why doesn't the earth fall towards the sun?

Question

why gravity can't pull the earth out of orbit

Answer 1

First of all, there's no such thing as "Centrifugal Force". What people are seeing is Momentum...

Gravity is acting as a Centripital force pulling the earth into an orbit against momentum.

Right now the Earth is moving about 66,000 MPH in it's orbit. This would be constant if we were alone in the solar system. But we're not.

The Gravity from other bodies in our solar system causes us to slow down and speed up, and as we do, the earth does fall closer to the Sun or even move further out...

It is possible that an errant massive body be added to our system could cause the Earth's orbit to falter and fail, but for now were in a fairly steady state of accelerating and decelerating, and we're holding our own against the Sun's Siren call of Gravity and Death...

Answer 2

The Earth IS falling toward the Sun all the time. The Earth is moving through space at 66,000 miles per hour, and it would move off at that speed in a straight line if the Sun's gravity didn't keep pulling it back. If the Earth were not moving at all, it would slowly start falling in a straight line directly toward the Sun, taking 3 months to fall all the way into the Sun. But the Earth is moving sideways at high speed so that after 3 months it has gone 93 million miles to one side and misses the Sun. Now it has to fall in a different direction. This keeps up all the time and that is what an orbit is.

Answer 3

The same reason that the moon does not fall toward the earth.

The Earth's motion is in a state of static equilibrium. If you simplify the physics, you basically have two forces acting on the planet. There is a force toward the center of its path, which is caused by gravity. There is also a force perpendicular to that force caused by an initial impact of sorts, which is unknown (Big Bang theory).

The sum of those two forces result in a vector that constantly changes, pushing the Earth in an elipse.

You can demonstrate this using a tennis ball, a piece of string, a nail, and some plywood. Tie one end of the string tightly to the ball, and the other end loosely to the nail, so it can spin around the nail freely but won't fall off. Drive the nail into the middle of the plywood. Give the ball a push in any direction other than directly at or away from the nail. The tension in the string is representative of gravity, pulling the ball (Earth) inwards towards the nail (Sun), but the initial force you applied keeps the ball traveling in a circle (Earth's oribit) instead of being pulled to the nail. This is almost exactly what is happening with Earth and the Sun.

Answer 4

Because the earth isn't simply standing still. If it were, it would drop into the sun. However, it's moving at a pretty good bit of speed, which, without the gravity of the sun, would cause it to fly in a straight line and leave the solar system.

Attach a strong, hefty rubber band onto a small medium weight object. Start whirling the object around your head. The rubber band would normally pull the object close to your hand, because the band resists stretching. However, because you are moving the object in a circle at a good rate of speed, the centrifugal force stretches the rubber band.

This is the same principle the earth is in. The centrifugal force is balancing the force of gravity.

p.s. This is just a different way of saying the same thing as the two answers prior to this one.

Answer 5

This is a fairly straightforward answer. The reason is gravity and something called centrifugal force. While the Sun does have a strong gravitational pull, it is the act of the Earth orbitin that is keeping it from "falling" toward the sun. Try this: Get one of the old time toys where there is a paddle that has a string attached to it that is attached to the ball. Seperate the string from the paddle. Discard paddle. Now you have the string and the ball that is attached to it. You represent the Sun, the ball represents the Earth, and the string represents the constant pull of gravity. Twirl the stringed-ball around your head and you will see that we will not fall off. Pull it toward you and the ball will want to stay in its orbit. If you had a ball of greater mass, it would be very hard to pull the ball toward you. See, simple answer.

Answer 6

the earth remains strong in its orbit because that is continuously falling in route of the solar. It honestly has a tangential velocity (immediately) yet its route keeps to regulate because of the rigidity of gravity from the solar. you'll study about this quickly sufficient once you study the action of a ball on a string that you swirl about above your head. As for aircrafts, they do use the inertia of the earth to maintain gas, yet because it travels contained in the atmospehere, that is concern to forces from the ambience. Ever listen of the jet bypass? in case you ever shuttle east-west round vacation (one way, no give up overs), take observe how lengthy to shuttle one route as against vacationing in the different. One is shorter than the different. For a craft to apply its inertia to shuttle around the earth without ingesting gas, it would want to first ought to achieve destroy out velocity, and go away the ambience. Then after that, it would want to ought to live on reentry. not economically possible. Airplanes are not outfitted for area shuttle.

Answer 7

The inertia of the earth's movement around the sun causes centrifugal force. The earth's speed is around 67,000 miles per hour. There is no friction, so that speed stays the same.

Answer 8

Hi. campbelp2002 is correct. Any object in orbit is 'falling' as it moves around.

Answer 9

there are some really big planets behind us.

Answer 10

because this is a creation from God and he has things in the place that they should be