eli5: I’ve heard orbit described as continuously falling past or missing the Earth, how then do objects in geosynchronous orbit above a single point not fall out of the sky?
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The key to understanding geosynchronous orbit is that it’s no different than any other orbit. It’s just an object orbiting a massive body like any other. All the same rules apply.
One of those rules is that the closer you are to a massive object, the faster you have to go to stay in orbit. The further you are the slower you have to go to avoid shooting off. So the orbital speed is directly related to the distance from whatever you’re orbiting. In other words, the higher the altitude, the slower the orbital speed.
Last piece: the earth is spinning at a certain speed. This doesn’t impact orbital issues at all. But if a satellite’s orbital speed happens to be the same speed that the earth is be spinning, well happy coincidence: it’ll *appear* to be stationary from the ground. But it’s not, it’s just that you and the satellite are going around the earth’s center at the same speed.
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