Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Why Earth is not falling up or down in Space ?

I am applying Newton`s law of gravity. Like the moving asteroids and or meteors, going where, down or up. Here we know what is up always go down. In outer space where is up and where is down.

8 Answers

Relevance
  • GeoffG
    Lv 7
    8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    There is no "up" or "down" in space, except in the sense that "down" is towards some centre of mass (which can be a moon, planet, or star) and "up" is away from that centre of mass. Earth is falling towards the Sun, but has enough momentum left over from its origin in the solar nebula to result in a stable elliptical orbit.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    In space there is no up or down.

    And even here, "down" in the US is not the same direction as "down" in Australia. Local "down" on earth is always towards the centre of the planet, no matter where you are.

    The gravity of the sun is trying to pull the earth "down" towards the sun, but the earth is orbiting around the sun, so centrifugal force tends to make it fly "up" away from the sun.

    The sun's gravity "down" and centrifugal force "up" balance each other, so the earth stays the same distance from the sun and keeps moving on an (almost) circular orbit.

  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    There is no up and down in space. Gravity works by pulling everything to one area. Asteroids also orbit stuff in space, if there is nothing to orbit it will move in a straight line.

  • ?
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    There is no up or down in space. Gravity works by pulling everything to a centre of mass such as the Earth's core or the core of the sun.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    It is falling, the Earth falls around the Sun - that's what gravity is about and an orbit can be seen as eternally falling to and missing.

    The Earth falls around the Sun, the Sun falls around the centre of the Galaxy.

  • We know up and down by the gravitational force of the nearest large mass (namely the Earth). We are also not in freefall like objects in space, so you cannot apply what you experience here, out in space as well. Most of the universe that exists beyond our experience is completely unintuitive to us.

  • ?
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    Because there is no up or down in space!

  • 8 years ago

    Conventional wisdom and Newtonian Mechanics are two blocks in your thinking and comprehension.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.