Can all the planets get dragged to the Sun?

Question

the sun's gravity IS strong, but strong enough to pull everything to its gravity field???

Answer 1

Err the planets have stable orbits, I believe something like centrifugal force constantly acts on the planets, balancing them against the sun's gravity, and keeping them in somewhat elliptical orbits.
In a few billion years though, the Sun will become a red giant, expanding, probably eating up Mercury and perhaps Venus.

Answer 2

Isaace Newton figured out that a star's gravity causes things to move around the star in elliptical paths; never in "spiral" paths that would crash into the star. This is true no matter how strong the star's gravity is.

However, ellipses come in many sizes and shapes. It's possible for an elliptical orbit to be so long and thin that the path of the ellipse intersects with the surface of the star. Then you have a crash. But none of the planets in the solar system have ellipses of such a shape--they're all pretty "fat" ellipses. These ellipses change shape very slightly over the course of millions of years; but never enough to make their paths intersect with the sun.

Now, if you introduce some other force in addition to gravity, things could change. For example, if a planet is orbiting a star in a solar system that is fairly "dusty," then the dust in space acts like friction and steals energy from the planet's orbit. In that case, the planet can begin to spiral in toward the sun. However, in our own solar system, nearly all the dust was cleaned out billions of years ago, so that's not a problem.

Answer 3

If the planets were not moving in their orbits, then they would all fall into the Sun. But since they ARE moving in their orbits, there is no way for the Sun to pull them in. The angular momentum of the orbital motion of the planets is a powerful force opposing the gravity of the Sun, and the closer to the Sun a planet is, the faster it orbits, and the faster it orbits, the stronger the centrifugal force resisting the gravity of the Sun.

Answer 4

No not at all. The sun's gravity is strong enough though to keep the planets in orbit.

Answer 5

Um...I'm not sure what you mean. Objects in stable orbits around the Sun can stay there pretty much forever without falling into the Sun. If the Sun had more gravity, this wouldn't change; the only thing that would change would be the necessary orbital speed (which would of course increase).

Answer 6

The planets have been around for some 4.5-billion years or so and the sun hasn't pulled them in to it yet. The reason is that the planets aren't just sitting out there. They all have enough outward speed trying to throw them off into space so that the sun's gravity is almost exactly cancelled.

Answer 7

No we are in orbit so unless something changes we will be there for a very long time.

Answer 8

Their angular moment keeps them away, allowing them to stay in their orbits.

Answer 9

Very unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Answer 10

Not this week.