why does gravity make things round??

Question

why not square or triangular???

Answer 1

A sheroidal body has an equilized gravitational potential. Other shapes, like cubes or tetrahedra (triangular pyramids), would have unevenly distributed gravitational fields along concentric surfaces, resulting in a net force on certain parts of the body. The corners would be further from the center than the midpoints of the faces would be, so they would be pulled inwards. This only works if the body has sufficient mass for gravity to be of a great enough magnitude to overcome the structural rigidity of the material. When a massive body settles into a spheroidal shape, this condition is called hydrostatic equilibrium. The final shape of a rotating body is slightly flattened at the poles, due to centripetal forces acting near the equator.

Answer 2

It's equivalent to making everything flat. When mountains and cliffs erode due to wind, water or whatever, the material in them falls to lower ground. Given enough time, everything will fall down. When it falls, it lands on something. Whatever falls on the ground without displacing something else will make it taller. If it is taller than its immediate surroundings, it is still in danger of eroding further. When enough things have broken down and fallen everywhere, everything will eventually be at the same height because the ground is in the way of any further falling. The land will be flat. But since the center of gravity is in the middle of the Earth, that "flat" is actually spherical.

Spheres are also the lowest energy shape, with the least surface area per volume. Soap bubbles have no appreciable gravity but they naturally form spheres, as does water, coffee, blood or any other liquid that isn't distorted by competing gravity. A cube or pyramid means sticking some stuff out farther than other stuff. In a sphere, everything has settled at the same depth.

Answer 3

Gravity acts in all directions at once and with almost equal force.
If an object is big enough then over time its own gravity, which appears to act from the centre of mass, will force it into a round shape.

There is a certain size of an object for this to take place and smaller objects will stay an irregular shape.

Sorry I don't know off hand what the critical mass is for a rounded object, could be a good question.

Answer 4

The mass of an object pulls in all directions.

Also, when it comes to another object's gravity determining the shape of something (the sun making a planet round), matter will often times take the path of least Resistance. This is also true when objects erode, either because of gravity or the flow of water (which is ultimately dictated by gravity).

Answer 5

Gravity does not make things go round. Gravity makes things move in a straight line. Momentum turns the line into a more or less circular shape. A circular shape has the smallest angular differential. A triangle or square would require excessively sharp changes in velocity at the angles.

Answer 6

if something is being pulled in through all directions, that forms a sphere.

However, I do have to add, every object has mass, on earth and in the universe, mass "generates" gravity, even people, cars, trees, rocks, and animals.. just not as much as something as large as the planets because the more mass an object hass, the more gravity it will produce.

Scientists don't yet know exactly what gravity is or how it is created, but they do know about the relationship between mass and gravity.

Answer 7

gravity at the center of planets and stars always attracts each and every smallest particle of the body with the same force as it attracts the other particles. if the gravitational force is exactly the same for each and every particle, all particles are attracted to the core with an equal force and this makes the body look spherical or round.
its the same with circles drawn on paper. if u take a point on a piece of paper and keep measuring say 4 cm away from the point in all directions, you will get a circle.

Answer 8

Gravity is not actually wholly responsable for the semi-spherical shape of planets and stars or other matter in space. There are some odd shaped "rocks" travelling around in the universe. So it's not a general rule that all masses assume round "shapes"

Answer 9

Because gravity is coming from all different sides. If you were to blow a bubble, you can see that gravity molds it into a circle because the gravity is pushing it from all different sides. If it was to be a square, there would have to be 6 points of where gravity was pushing against an object.

Long story short, whatever shape the Earth is, a bubble will be. (if earth was a triangle, then bubbles would be a triangle.

Answer 10

Because with a circle. or a sphere, the distance from the center of gravity to every point on the perimeter is about the same. With a square, or a cube, it is not, same with a triangle. Therefore objects with planet scale mass, tend to be sperical.