if newton and eistine r right why doesn't the planets slam into each other?
962588
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?
981339
Stars and planets form as a result of the gravitational collapse of accreting material. Any net translational motion of that initial material is accelerated as its radius of rotation decreases. This is due to the same conservation of angular momentum principle that makes skaters and divers spin more rapidly when they bring their arms closer to their bodies. In its extreme, this effect can make collapsed neutron starts spin many times each second, creating the regular beat of pulsars as observed from Earth. \n\nOnce an initial spin was established for the Earth, the same conservation principle says that its angular momentum will continue unless it can be transferred to another object. With no significant frictional forces to allow that to happen, the Earth can continue to spin indefinitely without any further prodding.\n\nColliding with Mars? I don't think so!!!!!
221678
the earth doesnt fly towards the sun cuz there r more than one force acting upon it...theres the gravitational pull the sun has on the earth as well as the fact that the moon wants to remain in motion in the same direction.this applies to newtons 1rd law of motion(his first law is that an object will remain at rest until acted upon by another object or it will remain in motion until acted upon by an object..in other words,its inertia)...since the earth has both a side movement and the gravitational pull from the sun...those 2 forces cause the earth to orbit around the sun and not fly towards it or away from it. if u dont understand this...email me (pulga0888@yahoo.com) and ill try to explain it better..........now for ur second question...wat makes the earth spin...the earth spins because of the rotation of the magna and stuff in the earths core..well in the convection zone...im pretty sure thats the answer to the second question but im not positive...if u want me to check then email me.
457404
All the planets in our solar system rotate in the same direction with the exception of Venus which rotates *very* slowly in the opposite direction.  It was theorised that it once suffered a glancing blow from a very large object that reversed its spin.\n\nHmm - by rotate I mean on their own axis - not around the sun, in which case all planets go the same direction.
503782
If there were 2 planets, one would probably catch up with the other. The slightest difference in their orbital speeds would lead them to come together and either collide or start orbiting around a point in space between the 2 planets. When they got very close, they would be gravitationally attracted to each other. They would either merge into one planet under gravitional force, or the gravitional force of the larger one might slingshot the smaller one out of this orbit into one further away from or nearer to the sun.\n\nThe distance at which a planet orbits from the sun is dependent just on its speed, not its mass. If the 2 planets had substantially different speeds, they would orbit at different distances from the sun.
250088
Larger planet has a stronger gravitational pull than a smaller planet.
81552
If you disregard air resistance, both land at the same time.\n\nThe Earth's gravitational pull affects everything equally.
905767
You are making it needlessly hard on yourself.  The planet has the same mass as the earth, and someone on it weight the same as on earth, therefore the surface of the planet is the same distance from its center as the earth radius, i.e. this planet has the same dimension as earth.\nSo, the radius of the planet is 6,372.797 km, same as earth's.\nYou don't need to compute anything.  The orbital velocity of the planet has nothing to do with it.\nIf the weight was different, you only need to scale it remembering that the weight would vary as an inverse of the square of the radius.
565184
The planets in our system are way, way too small to do anything like this. It would take something with the density of a black hole (or perhaps just a neutron star) to do something like this.
771396
Because gravity is the same - so it has the same effect on both objects.  The larger object will strike the ground with a greater force, but both objects will accelerate at the same rate.
543004
Technically, the general rotation direction of the Sun and most planets is a leftover from the original solar nebula from which the Solar System formed.  As the planets and Sun coalesced, they retained the rotation direction of the original nebula.\n\nDuring the coalescence phase, asteroid-size chunks collided and stuck together.  As more and more of these chunks collected, the planets grew in size.  However, these chunks not only brought mass to the mix, they also brought momentum.  Since most of the materials were probably all travelling in more or less the same direction, the general rotation direction of the growing planets remained the same.\n\nIn the case of Venus and Uranus, it is suspected that a major collision between the planet and another body literally tipped the planets over due to an off-center orientation of the collision.  Uranus tipped over on its side, probably due to its size relative to the other body.  Venus, being smaller, tipped so far over that its rotation was reversed.
268015
The matter that made up the sun and planets existed at one time as a very large disk. As the matter clumped together, it was already on the same plane. That's the theory, anyway.
404104
This situation is the natural result of one body orbiting another.  It is called tidal locking.  All of the moons of Jupiter are tidally locked to it, and Pluto and it's moon, Charon are tidally locked to each other for example.\n\nWhat happens is that an object that is rotating faster than it is orbiting feels a torque from the tidal force (differential gravity) exerted across it by the object it is orbiting.  Over time this will cause the rotation period to slow down to match the orbital period.  The time this takes depends on the distance between the two bodies and the reletive masses, as well as a few other factors.
1141942
some asteriods have gravity.billions of years ago,some rocks gathetred together to form the planets.when two asteroids colide to one,small particals are blast out but still controlled by the gravity of the astroid.when millions of astroids form to one,the small particalls get more.soon planets are born.but every planet dont have moons yet instead they have rings even earth.the small particalls eventually will collide again to form moons.even saturns ring will eventually form moons and you can see no rings
66192
It is due to the slight orbital eccentricity of Earth rotation around the Sun. Since the orbit is not perfectly circular the distance between the two bodies varies.
145985
the world is roughly spherical, (a ball) and the reason for this is because something as big as earth pulls itself toogether so that everything falls to the center of the sphere, if there were a substantially eneven spot on the earth (let's say a huge spike 40 miles high) it would most likely fall down into place. I magine a bunch of rocks that are pulling themselves together one rock sticks to the other you have two rocks keep on going now you have three so on and so on. If you take a bunch of weird shape magnets they'll stick together in the shape of a ball because they'll all want to be as close as possible and the only way to do that is a sphere since every point in the surface to the center will give you the same distance. Same as if you pushed clay from every side with equal force it'd form a ball.\n\nDUDE!!! PICK A BEST ANSWER!!!!
111203
I think the current theory is that it comes from the origin of the solar system as a spinning mass of material. This material had a certain angular momentum, which was retained as the material coalesced into the sun and the planets and moons and other bodies. So there are only a few planets and moons whose orbital and rotational angular momentum vectors are not aligned with each other (like Neptune, and Venus, Triton and a few of the smaller, more distant moons of Jupiter and Saturn).