Why doesn't the moon fall to the ground?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The earth is very large and its gravity is enormous. The earth attracts everything around. Why, then, the Moon, which is smaller than the Earth, does not fall, but continues to revolve around the globe in its orbit? In a sense, it falls - just "misses", scientists explain to the publication Forskning.

Because of the force of gravity, everything strives to fall to the ground. So why doesn't the moon crash into us?

Thanks to gravity, we have our feet firmly on the ground.

This slightly mysterious power gives things weight. This is why the ball falls back, no matter how high you throw it.

Large objects have more gravity than small ones. But, for example, the gravity of the planet is weakening more and more with distance from it.

The earth is very large and its gravity is enormous. It is thanks to this that the gases of our atmosphere are held around it, and we have something to breathe. Thanks to the gravity of the Earth, you can jump and not fly away while you know where. Most of the time, you just land on your feet again.

The earth attracts everything around.

Why, then, does the Moon, which is smaller than the Earth, continue to revolve around the globe along a route that we call an orbit? Wasn't she supposed to fall to Earth just like we did after the jump?

Moon falls to Earth, just misses

In fact, the Moon really falls freely to Earth all the time. She just constantly misses.

Scientist Isaac Newton was the first to realize that the same force makes apples fall to the ground, and moons with planets rotate in orbits.

He did a thought experiment.

If you pick up a stone and release it, it will fall straight down. If you throw a stone in front of you, gravity will still cause it to fall to the ground. But in this case, he will fly not only down, but also forward. It will fall in an arc.

Imagine a very high mountain. You shoot from it with a cannon, the core flies far ahead and eventually falls to the ground.

And you can also imagine a fantastic cannon that shoots with simply terrifying power. The nucleus flies very far forward in a very weak arc. And the Earth bends beneath it, because it is round.

If the cannonball travels at a high enough speed, it will never fall to the surface due to the curvature of the Earth.

Thus, the cannonball will be in orbit around the Earth.

Doesn't fall because we're walking at good speed

But what happens if you shoot a cannonball with even greater force and accelerate it to an even greater speed?

It will break out of the range of the Earth's gravity and continue on its way into space.

The moon is kept in its orbit by a combination of distance from Earth and its speed, writes the European Space Agency.

Likewise, the Earth revolves around the Sun. Its speed is 108 thousand kilometers per hour. This is a lot. Thanks to the speed of the Earth, we are moving in a stable orbit.

“If the Earth had suddenly stopped, it would have fallen directly into the Sun,” said Viggo Hansteen, professor in the Department of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, earlier at Forskning.

Satellites around the earth

Knowledge about orbits and gravity is very important for sending artificial satellites into space. Satellites are spacecraft that revolve around the Earth. Thanks to them, we can take pictures of the Earth, use mobile phones and much more.

Satellites should revolve around the Earth, and not go into outer space or fall back onto the surface of our planet.

Those who launch satellites into space must do a lot of calculations in order for the spacecraft to pick up the correct speed at altitude. According to the British Institute of Physics (IOP), this is the only way they can be in orbit.

The International Space Station also orbits the Earth. Astronauts live there. Although they are close enough to the Earth to be subject to strong gravity, they experience weightlessness. This is because they, together with the space station, were actually trapped in free fall around the Earth, like the Moon.

A different look at gravity

But what is gravity really?

Albert Einstein came to the conclusion that gravity does not at all attract objects to each other.

In fact, heavy objects bend the space around them. To simplify, you can imagine how a heavy large ball bends underneath the fabric of the trampoline. Launch a small ball nearby, and it will start rolling around a large one like a planet around a star.

The small ball slows down due to friction against air and fabric, and therefore eventually rolls towards the center. But that won't happen in space.

We can say that the planets are actually moving straight - but space is curved.