Why do planets have enough centripetal force to prevent themselves from crashing into the sun?

Question

Why do planets have enough centripetal force to prevent themselves from crashing into the sun?

In: 1

Answer 1

Anything in a stable orbit around the Sun has a perfect balance of gravity pulling it towards the Sun and a force making the motion of its orbit follow a curved path around the Sun, what’s basically centripetal force. Imagine a yo-yo you swing in a circle at the end of a string.

Anything that wasn’t in a stable orbit when the solar system was formed was eventually slingshotted out leaving only the ones with the balanced centripetal and gravitational forces. The slingshotted ones can be imagined as letting go of the string so there’s no longer a balance of forces.

There are some cool simulations of the early solar system on youtube that show it really nicely if you’re interested!

Edit: minor error and typo