• Question: i still dont understand how the earth just floats in nothing

    Asked by kirsten118 to Judith on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I didn’t get it for ages too but dont despair!

      We live on earth we so are used to things dropping in one direction(to the floor) so it can be hard to see why the earth doesn’t just drop. Things fall down here because the gravity of the planet beneath us pulls everything to its core but in space the only thing pulling our planet is the sun (and it’s gravitational pull) the reason we don’t fall into that is because of the speed of the orbit.So we’re in a nice in-between or being pulled in by the sun and out by the speed-basically meaning the earth stays at one distance from the sun!
      Hopefully that answered your questions but it’s a pretty tricky thing to get your head around so feel free to ask me to clear anything up!

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