What direction do the planets fall.?

Question

I know they follow an orbit and presume they go round clockwise but are they all falling up, down, north, south east or west. Often wondered as presumably there is no top or bottom to fall to??????

Answer 1

They are falling down into the sun. It is their foward motion that prevents them from plunging into the sun and getting vaporized.

If you go out at night and look at a planet, you will see that it rises in the east and sets in the west, just like everything else in the day or night sky, as a result of the earth's rotation on its axis. From one night to the next, you will see the planets (usually) appear to travel eastward against the background of stars, as a result of their revolution about the sun.

Answer 2

They fall towards the sun, because that is what exerts the biggest gravitational influence on them. But the "falling" is only fast enough stop them flying away from the Sun, and they are in stable orbits as a result.

North and South only have any meaning in relation to a body's axis, so it would depend which body you meant. The planets have little north/south movement relative to the Sun's axis of rotation.

East and West are to do with the body's rotation. I suppose you could say that since the planets all move in the same direction as the Sun rotates, they are moving (but not really falling) Eastwards, in the Sun's frame of reference, using the same definition of East and West as on Earth - although because they orbit the Sun more slowly than the Sun rotates, they would appear to move West across the Sun's "sky", if it were a planet on whose surface you could stand.

Answer 3

If viewing the solar system from above the earth's north pole, all the planets actually would move around the sun counter-clockwise. They appear to go east to west from our perspective each night because of the earth's rotation...but their orbital motion is in the opposite direction.

Answer 4

They're constantly falling towards the sun. Orbits are a combination of the planet and the sun in freefall. If the sun was stationary, it wouldn't matter how fast the planet was moving, it would still fall into the sun.

Answer 5

Talking about our solar system the planets "fall" around the sun. They are responding fully to the sun's gravitational field and are therefore weightless. As far as terms like north, up, etc. are concerned, these are meaningless. They all refer to the earth's surface, and have no meaning in space.

Incidentally, fro a viewpoint above the sun's north pole, the planets orbit in a counterclockwise direction, (and not to confuse the issue, the sun's north pole is called that in relation to the earth's north pole------again, all terms like up, north, etc. refer to the earth.)

Answer 6

Planets do not "fall". They are held in a fixed orbit around the sun. The orbit keeps them from "falling".

Answer 7

planets will"fall" towards the strongest gravitional pull.
gabe

Answer 8

Planets do not fall.

Answer 9

Your confusion reveals the answer. It's all relative.

Answer 10

towards you!