• Question: why do we orbit the sun?

    Asked by u13baylissj to Ellie on 12 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Eleanor Parker

      Eleanor Parker answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Hi u13baylissj,
      The sun is very big and has very strong gravity. This pulls all the planets including earth toward it and keeps them close. Earth is actually trying to travel in a straight line in direction at a right angle to the gravity from the sun. This means instead of going straight past the sun (which would happen if the sun had no gravity) or being pulled all the way into the sun (which would happen if earth had no speed of it’s own) the earth goes around the sun.

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