If the Earth is orbiting the sun and the sun is moving around the galaxy, and the galaxy itself is moving through space, why is it, with so many different speeds, that the planets’ orbits are so stable?

Question

With so much going on gravity-wise, it blows my mind that even with the solar system moving around the galaxy, everything stays so perfectly in place.

In: 8

Answer 1

Compared to the distance between the earth to the center of the galaxy, the distance between the earth and sun is nothing.
As far as the galaxy can tell, the sun, earth, other planets, and the entire solar system is just one object, super tiny, and super far away. And as far as the earth and sun can tell, the galaxy is just the stage where they interact with each other. The earth is so close to the sun compared to the size of the galaxy, that the main force it feels is from the pull of the sun. Any way the sun moved, the earth would follow, in orbit. The same thing is happening between the earth and the moon. Anyway the earth moved, the moon would follow, in orbit. The distances are just so much smaller that the gravitational force between the earth and moon are huge compared to the earth and sun. (Think, why aren’t humans pulled off the earth by the sun during the day? We’re just too far from it, and too small to feel the force)

So the pattern continues from the smallest things in space to the largest structures. Small orbits medium, orbits large, orbits huge, orbits gigantic. And each step only really feels the force of the next step up, because thats the closest thing thats also big enough to have a decent gravitational force on that object.