Are the planets of our solar system being sucked in by the sun, like a whirlpool for example.?
Question:
Answer:
Although the movements are similar, your analogy doesn't quite pan out. You see, gravity does not require SPIN. A planetary object has gravity due to its size, or mass, not because of its motion or rotation.
The planets are orbiting the Sun because their speed is insufficient to escape the Sun's gravitational attraction. They have not achieved Escape Velocity. But the orbits are in balance. They have not degraded measurably for 4.5 billion years.
Check out this site for further explanation:
http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/helios-dev/...
Have fun and keep theorizing!
It's nothing like a whirlpool.
I would suggest you learn a few things before critisising, like what the word theory means.
A whirlpool of water directs objects to the centre of the whirlpool, and in that statement you're right. But the rest of your question/statement is inaccurate.
Whirlpools suck things into the centre due to friction of the object with the water, which slows the object down so that it can't overcome the force pulling it into the centre. If an object had a motor that let it keep up speed it could "orbit" the whirlpool indefinitely.
The solar system is not a whirlpool, the planets orbit around the sun and are not being "sucked" into the sun.
The solar system formed 4 billion years ago - if it were a whirlpool then by your theory it would have ended when the planets were sucked into the sun 4-billion-minus-one-year ago. But the solar system is still here.
The Milky Way galaxy is not a whirlpool, it just looks like one. Gravity causes the stars to orbit the galactic centre, and due to drag on some of the star forming regions in the outer arms the stars and gas clouds form spiral arms.
Astronomical concepts are based on hypotheses formed from physical principles, then tested based on actual observations. Inaccurate measurements may exist, but are constantly being refined and re-analyzed. Which is why things we thought were true 50 years ago have been either proven right or have been re-evaluated and adjusted.
So before you make statements based on theories and inaccurate measurements, consider the consequences.
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