Article E - Gravity in the Solar System

1) Gravity’s role in solar system formation

The strong force of gravity from the large clump of dust and gas eventually caused atoms inside it to combine and release energy as light and heat, allowing our sun to form. That was the beginning of our solar system.Gravity formed the planets, too: when the sun formed, it consumed almost all of the particles in the center of the disk.

2) Why planets orbit instead of falling into Sun.

The planets don’t all collapse into the sun because they are moving too fast, and there is no force, like friction, to slow them down. The planets are moving sideways past the sun and have momentum in that direction. One way of thinking of momentum is to call it “mass in motion,” and because planets have lots of mass and are moving very fast, they have lots of momentum. Although the planets’ momentum is aimed in a straight line sideways past the sun, gravity from the sun pulls on the planets and causes them to move in a circle instead.

3) Black hole at the center of the galaxy

In fact, scientists have evidence that there is a supermassive object known as a black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy that is 4 million times more massive than the sun.

___ is the force that attracts objects with mass toward each other.

Gravity

Planets dont fall into the sun becuase of their sideways motion, or ___________

their momentum in that direction.

At the center of the Milky Way is a massive ______

black hole.