If our planet and all the other planets are just floating around in space what stops them from floating away?.

Question

There is probably a really obvious answer but I just dont get what is stopping us floating around and careering into other galaxy's

what i mean is what is holding us in the very same position for all this time??

Answer 1

Gravitational influence keeps things moving in a relatively predictable pattern.

If you take a large bowl of water and place small peices of floating objects in it, you should notice they attract each other; The larger objects will "drag" the smaller ones toward it.

This is basically how our Universe works.

During the formation of the Universe everything was moving, and moving fast. Stars (suns) and planets were formed by gases; Gravity simply pushed the gases together into a solid form and the pattern you see today is the result, even thought some planets are mostly gas, they are massive and have huge gravitational influences on other smaller planets; gravity is simply like a big magnet that pulls.

Our Sun, is Massive, compared to our Earth and other planets in our solar system. Notice that our planet Earth orbits (goes around) the sun. This is because Earth is "captured" by the sun and the Sun is trying to pull the Earth into it as it does with the rest of the planets in our solar system; since Earth is moving at several miles per second, and in itself is massive, it has the ability to avoid the sun and move around it in perpetual free-fall.

Your question is a good one as the answer, Gravity, is a huge influence on the entire Universe; Gravity is what makes planets Round, yeah, Gravity compresses inward in a uniform manner; the only shape possible, comming from all directions and in equal force, Is Round.

In your questions you asked what stops us from Careening into other Galaxies; Not to alarm you, but another Galaxy is headed right for ours and will hit us; however, it will not happen for another 4-8 billion years. Everything is moving; with 100 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, we are but one tiny spec of a planet as there are hundreds of billions of other Galaxies and if each galaxy has 100 billion stars that might mean there are 700 billion planets and again, we are all moving so collisions are bound to occure.
To put in a more realistic way, we need to consider time as a major factor. In your life time, say, 85 years, nothing occures of any geologic or Cosmic significance. As everything is so Big, it all appears to move slowly to us. Chances are nothing will happen to Earth, in any significant manner, in a million of your life times.

Answer 2

According to the big bang theory, there are four fundemental forces in the universe which collectively equal the initial force of the big bang (as energy cannot be created or destroyed - it just changes form).
These are: gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear and electromagnetic. Grand unified theories suggest that each of the four forces were once bound together, but broke away due to the big bang - gravity being the first to do so.


Gravity is the force which acts on objects of larger mass, such as suns, stars and planets and Newtonian law tells us that any object of mass exerts an attractive force on any other object of mass.

The sun is the most massive thing in our solar system, so it exerts a massive gravitational pull on the Earth and other planets which keep us in more or less the same relative position to the sun.

Of course, the sun is gradually diminisheing in mass as it burns it's available energy from the constant nuclear reactions which keep it going, so should the Earth outlive the sun, it will start to drift off at some point, but we're talking billions of years away, so don't panic.

So there you have it.

Answer 3

in case you have a string on your hand and a stone tied to the string and this is rotating around your hand, what ward off it to come again in direction of your hand and hitch it? the indisputable fact that this is speed is perpendicular to the rigidity that ties it to the string, it is the centripetal rigidity. If the strings breaks, what is going to the stone do? It heavily isn't attempting to come again nearer on your hand, in actuality, it is going to proceed with the flow it had on the very 2nd that the string splitt into 2 products. So, gravity prevents that we flow some distance faraway from the sunlight. this is not any longer hassle-free to understand yet think of a few ball shifting on a table till it gets to the 2nd while the table ends and it starts to fall. At this 2nd it could have a speed which will in actuality be the sum of two velocities, one that's the comparable that it used to have, vox (permit's call x the path the ball became into having while it began out to fall) and one that is perpendicular to x, vy. in the very 2nd that the ball starts to fall, vy_0 is 0. yet then gravity starts to act and vy grows. So, this is not any longer 0 anymore. And those 2 vectors are sumed and the speed at a due element (till the ball gets to the floor) has a path that isn't x anymore, and that isn't y, the two. If varieties an perspective which will selection because of the fact vx will nonetheless be the comparable by way of inertia, yet vy is increasing because of the fact the acceleration g is appearing on the ball. So, coming returned to the Earth, at *any* 2nd it has a vx, that tries that the Earth is going out of its orbit and a g that this is perpendicular to it and that tries that the Earth good points a vy. this is extra or much less the comparable case than the ball in the table and the Earth is in actuality "falling" to the sunlight everytime. yet, the path of g isn't the comparable while the Earth has moved a tiny bit because of the fact the vector r has a diverse path and so has the g. the comparable that occurs to the stone and the string occasion. And the comparable way that ths stone keeps rotating around the string, the Earth is rotating around the sunlight and easily attempting to leave this is orbit, no longer attempting to pass in direction of the sunlight Ilusion Ilusion

Answer 4

gravity, a mystical force that is not fully understood, but the bigger and object is, the more it pulls something towards it.

Or in our case, imagine we are zooming past the sun, but its is pulling up towards it and we just keep zooming around and around it instead. These forces are balanced, although were loosing a very very very small amount of speed over the years.

So us and the other planets are held by our sun and we move around it, other stays hold there planets in place. Imagine spinning a ball on a piece string around with your hand, we are the ball held by the pull of the sun (your hand) , with gravity the string. If gravity stopped, or you cut the string we go shooting off into space !!!

The moving bit, you can liken to being in a car. Once you are in a car doing 70mph, you have no sensation of actual travelling if you closed you eyes. So our galaxy moves, our planet moves, we move with it.

Stephen Hawkins books are a good read and suprising simple to understand. have a look in your local library.

Answer 5

Our Galaxy is constantly moving through space with the planets orbiting the Sun due to its gravitational force. Almost all galaxies are moving away from us because of the Hubble expansion of the Universe. However, some nearby galaxies can actually move toward us because of local motion over and above that associated with the expansion of the Universe (this motion is called peculiar motion). One such example of peculiar motion is that the Andromeda Galaxy is moving toward us and it appears that Andromeda and the Milky Way will collide in about 3 billion years.

Answer 6

Newton discovered over 400 years ago that gravity is holding the planets in eliptical orbits around the sun. Gravity is in turn holding the sun in an orbit around the milky way's (our galaxy) center. Gravity is howevr causing
some galaxies to collide as they move around their centers of gravity. Also it has been found that the universe is continually expanding with all galaxies moving away from eaaaach other.

Answer 7

Gravity. Just as we are held in place on the Earths surface by gravity. The Earth and the planets are held in orbit round the Sun by the Suns gravity. The Sun is held in orbit round the Galaxy by the gravity at the Galaxies core. Bit more complex than that but essentially that's the story..

Answer 8

Who says we are staying in the same place? The sun keeps the planets going around it in the solar system. But the whole solar system is orbiting at very high speed around the galaxy. Nothing but gravity is stopping us.

Answer 9

Firstly the suns gravity keeps us where we are at the moment but in turn our sun is also revolving around a bigger sun and eventually our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy Billions of years yet so i shouldn't worry

Answer 10

remember that your standing on a planet that's evolving,
and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour...
That's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,
the sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
are moving at a million miles a day.
in an outer spiral-arm at forty thousand miles an hour
of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,
it's a hundred thousand lightyears side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand lightyears thick,
but out by us it's just three thousand lightyears wide.
We're thirty thousand lightyears from galactic central point,
we go 'round every two hundred million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions,
in this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
in all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light you know;
twelve million miles a minute, that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when your feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!