How do the planets stay in orbit around the sun?
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Transcript How do the planets stay in orbit around the sun?
How do the planets stay in orbit
around the sun?
The solar system was formed from a rotating
cloud of gas and dust which spun around a
newly forming star, our sun, at its center. The
planets all formed from this spinning diskshaped cloud, and continued this rotating
course around the sun after they were
formed. The gravity of the sun keeps the
planets in their orbits. They stay in their
orbits because there is no other force in the
solar system which can stop them.
How does gravity affect a planets
orbit?
Kepler wondered why some planets closest to
the sun move faster than the planets that are
farther away.
Newton put the answers together with his own
law of universal gravitation.
Due to the force of gravity, the attraction
between the Earth and the other planets are
attracted to each other. Attraction depends on
the masses of the objects and the distance
between the objects (planets).
Gravity
Planet on Which You Would
Feel the Heaviest:
Jupiter: A 100-pound person
would weigh 254 pounds on
Jupiter.
Planet on Which You Would
Feel the Lightest:
Pluto. A 100-pound person
would weigh only 9 pounds on
the dwarf planet Pluto.
On Mercury and Mars, a 100pound person would weigh
only 38 pounds.
Revolve
When an object
moves in orbit around
another object, it
revolves around it.
The Moon revolves
around the Earth. The
Earth revolves around
the Sun
Rotation
Earths spinning on its axis.
The Earth rotates towards
the east
The time it takes for the
Earth to rotate completely
around once is what we call
a day. That is what gives us
night and day.
As the Earth rotates only one
half of the Earth faces the
sun at any given time.
Revolution
Revolution is the
movement of one
object around
another.
The revolution of the
Earth around the Sun
takes one year.