Planes of gravity?

newmug

Hi folks. Can someone help me understand this.

You know the demonstration of a bowling ball on a trampoline that you often see to show how the moon goes around the Earth? And in turn, how the Earth goes round the sun? Well why then, does the moon not fall toward the sun aswell? At what point does the "plane" of gravity change such that the moon is more attracted to the Earth? How does this all work?

Morbert

newmug wrote: »

Hi folks. Can someone help me understand this.

You know the demonstration of a bowling ball on a trampoline that you often see to show how the moon goes around the Earth? And in turn, how the Earth goes round the sun? Well why then, does the moon not fall toward the sun aswell? At what point does the "plane" of gravity change such that the moon is more attracted to the Earth? How does this all work?

The moon is falling towards the sun, but so is the earth.

On a related note, you might be interested in Lagrangian points.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

newmug

Morbert wrote: »

The moon is falling towards the sun, but so is the earth.

On a related note, you might be interested in Lagrangian points.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

Thanks Morbert. Lagrangian points, never heard of them, but thats EXACTLY what I was looking for!