Why do planets have enough centripetal force to prevent themselves from crashing into the sun?
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That is not how centripetal force works. Centripetal force has to do with the counter force of inertia for a rotational mass pointing towards the axis of the rotation.
Planets do not crash into the sun because they are in a state of constant freefall where they are moving away from the sun as fast as they are falling into the sun so they circle around it.
Consider you throw a ball, it fly, its curve down due to gravity and hits the ground. You throw it harder, it flies farther for longer, eventually curves down and hits the ground. WHat if we threw it at say 100,000feet at 10k mph? It would fly through the air, and slowly curve down towards the Earth and land somewhere probably 5-6k miles away. Now, you go into orbit and you throw the ball with the same force that gravity is pulling it down, the ball flys forward curves down but as it curves down is still moving so fast forward is doesn’t get closer to earth anymore. Now, that ball is in orbit. It keeps moving forward an curving down but never getting any closer to the Earth.
Planets are in orbit of the sun in the same way.
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