wrote:
Assuming that you are not being sarcastic. This would imply that
Mercury, Venus, and Earth, and other natural satellites will impact on
Sun's surface some time in the future. Unless -- you mean that we are
moving towards Sun so fast that we end up circling it each time?

Your statements reminds of my physics teacher; he said that an object
never touches surface, there is a tiny gap between the object and the
surface, although it is so tiny that we can't see.

Barry Schwarz wrote:
On 28 Jul 2006 20:15:54 -0700, wrote:

How come we are not going towards the sun? Sun gravity is so powerful
that every nature satellite is orbiting around it (with the expection
of smaller satellites like moons). I am wondering how come planets are
not going towards the sun.


I am sure my question may sound bit silly to some people.

We going towards the sun. It just so happens that our rate of
"descent" and our "lateral" velocity are sufficiently "well balanced"
to keep us in orbit.

The size of the orbiting object is irrelevant. The principle is the
same for moons orbiting planets, planets orbiting stars, stars
orbiting galactic centers, double stars orbiting each other, and
spaceships orbiting their various targets.


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The planets are not going toward the Sun, but they are constantly
accelerating towards the Sun, in Newtonian terms anyway. But they have
sufficient momentum at a right angle to their acceleration, that by
they time they have fallen the distance to the Sun, they have already
moved way beyond it in the direction they were originally moving, so
they remain in perpetual orbit, always accelerating towards the Sun,
but moving at a right angle to it.

Double-A