why all planet orbiting sun. Not falling into it same with iss in outer space of earth .
In: 0
Orbiting *is* falling.
If the planets *weren’t* falling towards the sun, they’d move in a straight line forever, the same way a ball would move if you kicked it on a soccer field.
But the planets *are* falling towards the sun; imagine kicking a ball off a cliff, it’s going to go straight ahead still… but it’s also going to go *down.* You’ll get a curved shape as the ball goes forward and down off the cliff.
What makes orbiting so special is that as the planet is falling, the *direction* it’s falling is changing. Imagine you kick that same ball off the same cliff… but you kick it *so hard* that the curve is big enough to follow the curve of the Earth. The ball will go forward and down… but as it does, the direction that “down” is changes, because it’s always towards the center of the Earth. So it keeps falling in new directions, which ends up making it fall in a circle around and around and around.
Orbiting is constant falling.
Latest Answers