P_Rog Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 I was doing a little reading and looked and some pictures about planet orbits and other things. One thing they talked about is how they're all within one plane pretty much. I was wondering why this is, since gravity is holding it in, why wouldn't it be more spherical. If you look at dust clouds surrounding a star, they're planar, why isn't it a big sphere encompassing the planet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 Things in different planes will eventually collide. Go here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noshi Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Another way you can look at it, have a rope with a ball. Spin with the rope and it goes straight out. This is kinda like the effect which causes the planets orbit although not a scientific explaination its simple and easy to understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Molotov Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Rotation of the newly formed star causes most of the gas and materials in the area to form into a flat disk. Out of this accretion disk planets form. Thus in mature solar systems we get planets that are all on a similar plane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primarygun Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Yes, why are oval orbits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noshi Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 There are several reasons for the shape of the orbits, all which end up making them, for example the gravitational pull of other planets will effect your orbit, and since the planets have different lengths for one orbit around the sun, each end up causing a unique pull to each planet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodyhi11 Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 We don't know what caused the planet go in orbit. Gravity is caused by the curvature of space time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Another way you can look at it, have a rope with a ball. Spin with the rope and it goes straight out. No, it doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primarygun Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 How did Mr. Newton find out Newton's 3rd law? He illustrated the things on the earth first or the universal attractions between any two objects first? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 Why plane orbits... they're all within one plane pretty much. I was wondering why this is' date=' ...[/quote'] conservation of angular momentum start with a spherical cloud of gas and dust where every particle has some motion w/rt the centerpoint, say, imagine adding up all those angularmomentums the answer is very unlikely to come out exactly zero only if it it is zero can the cloud simply fall together towards a point if there is some substantial amount ang.mom. then the cloud can only contract to a pancake (because quantity of rotation has to be preserved, it's a law) so spherical clouds almost always contract to pancakes because of a simple conservation law it is as basic as conservation of energy but people dont think about it as much because you have to buy energy at the petrol station and you dont have to buy rotation, but it is still conserved (sum total not created or destroyed) BTW collision (swansont mentioned) plays a role and so does radiating away energy. as cloud collapses to pancake (with some residual rotation) there will be some excess potential/kinetic energy that has to be dumped. that is not so hard to do because it can be radiated away as heat-----the heat for instance caused by collisions. but collisions do not destroy total angular momentum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?p=105836#post105836 here is a swanstont post about the same thing (angular momentum conservation) in that earlier thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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