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What is inertia and how does it apply to orbital motion?
Like all objects with mass, planets have a tendency to resist changes to their direction and speed of movement. This tendency to resist change is called inertia, and its interaction with the gravitational attraction of the sun is what keeps the planets of the solar system, including Earth, in stable orbits.
What is orbital motion and inertia?
Explanation: A planet orbits the sun at a constant speed due to gravity and inertia. Inertia keeps a planet moving in a forward direction. When the force of gravity balances a planet’s inertia the result is circular motion. A planet needs to be moving at just the right speed to stay in orbital motion around the sun.
Is there inertia in orbit?
A planet in motion remains in a stable orbit around the sun mainly because of two things: the nature of the gravitational force and because virtually no other forces act on the planet. The momentum of a planet changes during its orbit but not, in general, its inertia — which relates solely to its mass.
Does inertia apply in space?
Absolutely yes! Even in space objects have mass. And if they have mass, they have inertia. That is, an object in space resists changes in its state of motion.
Why do the sun and earth not collide?
The primary reason the Earth doesn’t fall into the Sun is that it has a very large tangential velocity with which it is able to maintain an orbit. The physics is the same for describing satellites which we launch into orbit around the Earth.
Does inertia keep the Earth moving around the sun?
Orbital Motion: Newton concluded that two factors—inertia and gravity– combine to keep Earth in orbit around the sun, and the moon in orbit around Earth.
Is the law of inertia valid in space?
How are gravity and inertia related to the orbit of the Earth?
Orbital Motion: Newton concluded that two factors—inertia and gravity– combine to keep Earth in orbit around the sun, and the moon in orbit around Earth. Gravity and Inertia balancing each other out to create an orbit:
What causes an object to orbit in space?
Orbits are the result of a perfect balance between the forward motion of a body in space, such as a planet or moon, and the pull of gravity on it from another body in space, such as a large planet or star. An object with a lot of mass goes forward and wants to keep going forward; however, the gravity of another body in space pulls it in.
Objects tend to “keep on doing what they’re doing.”. In fact, it is the natural tendency of objects to resist changes in their state of motion. This tendency to resist changes in their state of motion is described as inertia. Inertia: the resistance an object has to a change in its state of motion .
How does the mass of an object affect its inertia?
Inertia describes the relative amount of resistance to change that an object possesses. The greater the mass the object possesses, the more inertia that it has, and the greater its tendency to not accelerate as much.