Greg Neill wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
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.

Newton's canon:

http://www.waowen.screaming.net/revi...n/ncananim.htm


Notice how the cannonball when blasted with enough velocity to make it
all the way around the Earth, yet not escape it, will always return to
the cannon.

So how is it that theorists, who think the Moon was formed after a
collision between the Earth and some other body, think that rocks
blasted off the Earth could stay in orbit and not return to the place
on the surface from which they were blasted?

Double-A