How is it that Gravity of the Sun is not pulling us away from the earth?

Question

The sun is exerting a gravitational pull on the huge mass of the earth and keeps it in its orbit . We are moving freely on the surface of the earth and we are not tied to the earth firmly.How is it that the gravity of the Sun that pulls all the planets and keeps them in orbit around itself , is not pulling us apart from the earth into itself ? The gravitaional pull of the earth on us cannot be greater than that of the Sun on the earth or on us on the earth.If the pull of the Sun is weak on us on account of the distance of the sun from us , then that weak gravity would certainly, be not able to keep the earth on its orbit. So what is it that is keeping us on the earth without being pulled away by the Sun?

If the gravity decreases by the square of the distance between the two bodies of the SUn and the Earth,, how is it that the reduced gravity is able to pull the emassive body of the earth and unable topull the insignioficant mass of th ehumanbodies.?Those who advise a course in physics woud do well to explain and display thier great scientific knowledge for the beneifit of those who do no know much, please .All the people here are not scientists or or men of great wisdom as a few of the answerers seem to be ,herein.

If the gravity decreases by the square of the distance between the two bodies ,Viz , the Sun and the Earth,, how is it that the reduced gravity is able to pull the massive body of the earth and unable to pull the insignificant mass of the human bodies.?Those who advise a course in physics woud do well to explain and display their great scientific knowledge for the beneifit of those who do no know much, please .All the people here are not scientists or or men of great wisdom as a few of the answerers seem to be ,herein.The question is raised only for that purpose .Please share your great wisdom with the other members who would like to know about it.

If the earth exerts a powerful force of gravity on us because of our proximity to it , th esun exerts a much more powerful gravitaional force on th eearth despite the enormoud distance betewen the two bodies .other wise it would not be able tokeep the earth in its orbit .So despite the sun's gravity at the surface levelof h eearth being greater than that of the earth on us , how is it that it does not pull us apart though we are not firmly attached to the earth?.

Will any one think about the acceleration due to gravity and its effect on things irrespective of their mass and the fact that the Sun is pulling us also with the same force with which it pulls the earth ?Also to be considered is the fact that the strength of the gravity between the two bodies is directly proportional to the ,mass of the bodies concerned though it is inversely proportional to the square of the distnce between them?

Answer 1

This is one of the best questions I've seen here.

If you think about it enough, you should be able to figure it out. You're not missing any of the important information - you're just nothing putting it all together correctly yet.

Answer 2

I don't know for a fact, but i'm pretty sure that gravity gets weaker the further the distance. An example of this is tides, the moon is on average 380000 miles from the earth, the sun is about 90 billion miles. The moon is much smaller but is closer and there is a visable effect. However you're wrong about we are not being pulled by the sun. We are pulled but we are just used to that miniscule pull (force). So obviously since the sun is keeping the earth in its orbit, things are on a very large scale. Any physical changes we could see would possibly be buffered by the earth's own gravity (especially at that distance). So again we stay on earth because of it's mass and distance comparison. And then the earth, and anything on it is put into the sun's orbit. a bit confusing, hope it helped

Answer 3

Hey, that's a great question! You are thinking like a physicist now and by posing these questions, you will sort things out and become an awesome scientist. This is probably a physics questions though not a religious one.

We ( the people of earth) are part of the mass of the earth. The gravity pull from the sun acts on us all as a whole. This includes the atmosphere, the clouds, the ground, the buildings, the dogs, the cars, the ocean, the toys, the people, etc.

Gravity is pulling a little bit on each piece. But the force of gravity on the chunk of earth in the middle is so much huger than the force from say just one person that the tiny component of gravity pulling you is microscopic compare to that pulling the earth.

F = G m1 m2
-------------
r^2

Let m1 = mass of sun

if m2 is the earth in on case, and then just you in another case, we see that the force of the sun on the earth is probably 10^23 bigger than the force of the sun on you due to the mass difference.

Answer 4

Gravity is not the result of an object. It is the result of the force between two objects.

Gravitational force depends on two factors: 1. how far the objects are from each other (the farther away they are the weaker the force becomes) and 2. their mass (the larger their mass, the stronger the force becomes)

To determine the force felt by an objects, you multiply both of their masses together, multiply this by the gravitational constant, and divide by the square of the distance between the objects.

The reason the sun doesn't pull us toward it is because the Earth's gravitational force is greater for us than the Sun's gravitational force (because we're so much closer to the center of the Earth than the center of the Sun).

The gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth (or other planets) is much larger than the force between a person and the Sun, which is why the Sun exerts considerable more "pull" on the planets than on people.

Answer 5

A sound theory you have there young man. Perhaps we're being sucked into our fiery death. Oh and what of the Sun getting larger? Have you heard of that? How long until the acceleration caused by an increase of gravity is noticable? A billion years? I'd also like to think so. Our orbit speed is all that works against the pull of the Sun.

Sure I misread the question but pretend I didn't.

Answer 6

maybe if you examined the law of gravity it would make sense (it's been around for hundreds of years, so what's your excuse?)

the force of gravity on a body is proportional to the product of the two bodies in question and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

so for a person on earth, the gravitation attraction between them and the earth is greater than with the sun because of proximity and the gravitation force between planets with the sun is because the planets are so much more massive.


a basic physics class should be required for all high school students.

Answer 7

We are bound by the gravity of the Earth, so we move where the Earth moves, as we share its inertia.

The Earth never collides with the sun because it is a satellite, meaning its constantly 'falling' toward the sun, but at a rate that prevents it from actually colliding.

Visual resources help, I would google this.

Answer 8

The force of gravitational attraction between the Earth and other objects is inversely proportional to the distance separating the earth's center from the object's center.

This page should clear you up:

Answer 9

I see you are more a astute than the average person. You can believe all these conspiracy theories about gravity, or you can learn the real truth, which is that the Sun God doesn't want humans to trash up the place like Earth.

Answer 10

Not to belabor a point - but, the sun isn't the only source of gravity in our solar system.

You need to pick up a book on physics and astronomy...maybe watch "Planet Earth" or "The Universe" on History and Discover channel.

They will explain it all to you.

Answer 11

This is a physics question, but since we are so much closer to the earth than we are to the sun, the earth's gravitational pull has a much larger effect on us. Look at the equation for gravity (I have forgotten it).