Why doesn't the sun keep on pulling us?

Question

I know the sun has strong gravity.But If our sun pulled our planet from some other place and pulled us this close why doesn't it keep on pulling us into it? Basically why doesn't the suns gravity(pull) suck us in the sun itself?

Answer 1

Remember that Earth is 93 million miles away. If the earth and the sun last long enough, the earth will someday be pulled into the sun.I guess that should have a little impact on the Global Warming.

Answer 2

That would make sense if, indeed the earth had been captured. It might not collide with the sun, but it would have a highly elliptical orbit. But that's not what happened. The planets formed at the same time and out of the same accretion disk that the sun did. They were born together out of one big swirling, whirlpool-like nebula.

The one guy was right in one sense when he said we are falling into the sun. Strange as it may seem, we are falling without getting any closer. Our forward motion keeps us from getting closer. The two forces balance out. Now if you could stop the earth from revolving around the sun, it would fall straight toward it. (But I don't know where he was coming from when he talked about the speed of light.)

Answer 3

>Why does not sunlight's gravity pull us? It does. >sunlight's gravity is what retains the Earth revolving around it,isn't it? particularly than flying away into interstellar area, specific. >yet as quickly as we get away in area and the Earth's gravity isn't engaged on us anymore,why do no longer we get pulled into the sunlight? First, whether you pass into area, that does no longer mean the Earth's gravity isn't affecting you. The gravity of the Earth, like countless different merchandise, diminishes via the sq. of the gap, inspite of whether there is any environment accessible. 2d, whether you left the Earth, you are able to nonetheless have the comprehensive orbital velocity you initially had at the same time as on the earth. so which you will pass on orbiting the sunlight, merely like the Earth does, except something happened to cancel out that velocity (such as you without notice met an asteroid, or you fired some rockets to decelerate).

Answer 4

The Sun is pulling the Earth in, just the gravity from the Sun is equal to the Earth's speed of going outwards, if the earth orbits faster, it will leave its orbit and travel off to outer space. e.g to escape Earth's gravity, you have to travel more than 9 ms per second outwards, but if you slow down just before you completely got out of earth's gravity range, you will remain in a freefall towards earth and at the same time going outwards, making you going into orbiting earth

Answer 5

The Sun does pull on the Earth, if it didn't we'd fly off into outer space. The Earth's orbital speed stops us from being pulled in.

Answer 6

It does, but the process is very slow. Earth is 93 million miles away. If the earth and the sun last long enough, the earth will someday be pulled into the sun.

Unless the earth's orbital speed is too great, in which case the earth will gradually move farther and farther away from the sun.

Answer 7

Have a play with the applet at the link. It's showing why objects orbit the Earth, but it's exactly the same principal.

Answer 8

We are constantly falling into the sun. It happens at the speed of light. And since our tangenital velocity is great enough, we are locked into an orbit. Not like the gum.

Answer 9

I like candy.