why all planet orbiting sun. Not falling into it same with iss in outer space of earth .

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why all planet orbiting sun. Not falling into it same with iss in outer space of earth .

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Anonymous 0 Comments

To get something in orbit, you need to have a high tangential velocity. That is, it has to be moving sideways so fast that by the time it “falls,” the curvature of whatever is being orbited is such that the orbiting object never hits it. Without that tangential velocity, the thing would indeed just fall right back down.

I’ve always pictured it like throwing a ball. Throw it, it arcs a bit as it falls to the ground. Throw it harder, it travels further but eventually curves to the ground. Now picture throwing it really hard. The surface of Earth isn’t a plane, so you can throw it so hard that but the time it falls, the curvature of the Earth starts to come into play and the ball has to fall a little more before it lands. Expanding on this, you can theoretically throw something so hard that, if it didn’t slow down, that by the time it fell, the Earth would have curved completely out from under it. In this case, the object could keep falling but never hit the Earth. This is essentially what an orbit is. You need to be in space so you don’t have air slowing you down, but the idea is the same.

relevant xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

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