• Question: how do planets move out of the way of each other?

    Asked by 823spcm42 to Eimear, James, Jonathan, Lána, Willi on 5 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: William O'Connor

      William O'Connor answered on 5 Mar 2018:


      The planets go around the sun in different “orbits”. An orbit is the path of the planet around the sun. It is roughly circular, or a slightly “flattened” circle, called an ellipse. Each planet has its own orbit, and the orbits do not cross each other. As you go out from the sun, the orbits get bigger and bigger, the next one going outside the previous orbits. Mercury is closest to the sun. Then comes Venus. We are the third planet, Earth. After us Mars. And so on. Each planet’s path goes outside the previous one’s path.
      So the planets never get in each other’s way, and they don’t have to move from their orbits (or paths) to avoid hitting each other.

    • Photo: Lána Salmon

      Lána Salmon answered on 5 Mar 2018:


      Willi’s answer is perfect. It’s also cool to know each planet has got it’s own gravitational field which pulls things towards it. The strength of pulling depends on the size of the planet (the bigger the planet, the larger the force pulling) and the distance from the planet (the further you are from the planet, the less you feel being pulled toward it). The planets orbits are large enough and far enough apart that the planets don’t get pulled toward each other.

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