Eli5 Who do all the planet not eventually get sucked into the sun?
In: Physics
The planet orbiting the Sun is trying to move in a straight line, and thus away from the Sun. That’s called momentum. The Sun is pulling the planet with gravity towards the Sun, causing the planet to “turn” slightly in its path. Enough small turns over and over, you get a circle. An orbit is when the planets speed and the pull of gravity are balanced making a perfect circle. Thanks to physics, momentum and gravity never wear out or decrease, so the orbit goes on forever. So momentum is pushing out just as much as gravity is pulling in. There is balance and it doesn’t fall into the Sun.
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