how does the sun and moon stay in the sky?

Question

when gravity pulls down

Answer 1

Gravity does not pull "down", it pulls *between* masses.
On the earth things appear to fall "down" because of the gravitation force between the center of mass of the earth and the centers of mass of objects on and immediately above the earth.
The earth orbits around the sun because of the gravitational force between the earth and sun.

In space there is *no* up or down.

Answer 2

Urm, the sun is much more massive that the earth, by several orders of magnitude. It is it's gravity that should be pulling the earth down. Many years ago, one of my college TAs gave this explaination of how orbiting bodies works:

Let's say that you have a baseball, and you throw it away from you. At first it gradually drops, and then drops in an arch. Now if I throw it harder, it travels farther before dropping. Now, we all know that the earth is round, so what if there were no mountians in my way, and I could throw the ball so hard, that it missed the round earth as it was falling. Then it would just spin around the earth forever, always missing falling to the ground.

Answer 3

The moon is in orbit around the earth, due to its momentum (movement) in space. The earth's gravity keeps it circling the earth, but the earth's gravity is not enough to pull the moon "down".
And the sun is just too far away for earth's feeble gravity to affect it. In fact, the sun's gravity dominates the entire solar system (earth included) so the earth is in orbit around the sun in a similar manner to the way the moon is in orbit around the earth.

Answer 4

You are kidding surely.

Reminds me of an old guy I worked with many years ago, said "there must be a God, otherwise who holds the sun and moon up in the sky?".

Jeez I thought there would not be anyone like that in this space age.

The sun and moon are not up in the sky. The clouds are up in the sky along with birds and planes.

The moon is 230,000 miles beyond the sky and the sun 93 million miles beyond the sky.

I am flabbergasted if you did not really know this. Are you pulling our legs?

Answer 5

In space, there is no 'down'. Gravity is in the direction of massive bodies. That's all.

Answer 6

The inertia of their orbits.

Remember, in space there's no friction so Newton's 1st law of motion holds:

Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. an object will move in a given direction until a force acts on it.

Answer 7

Each of them has a large hook made out of
iron and bronze metal, known as a "sky
hook" on the side opposite from us which is
permanently attached and keeps it in place.
The hook goes right down into the central
core and is solidly anchored there sort of
like a pipe stem, or the roots of a tree.
Maybe you have heard of sky hooks before
and just didn't realize what they were?

Answer 8

LOL,, theyre not in the sky, its called SPACE, clouds are in the sky..LMAO!!

Answer 9

..... MAGIC!!!!!!!!........

....or some semi advanced astrophysics involving gravity, Newton's laws of motion, and the theory of relativity.......which ever floats your boat......