This week in physics we started learning about the solar system! Not really, more of the gravitational affects the earth and sun have on each other. We learned that planets and moons orbit stars. The path that they have is called an elliptical path, with two focus points or foci's(shown in figure 1)
The force of the earth on the moon is equal to the force of the moon on the earth, because they are force pairs, and force pairs are equal but opposite But! they might have the same amount of force, but there is a bigger effect on the moon, because of its mass. Also shown in the picture is if the planet wasn't affected by the sun's gravitational force, it would continue in its tangent path! We also learned that the earth is tilted which causes the different seasons in the hemispheres. This week, we learned that the moon does not orbit the earth, it looks like it does but it really doesn't, it orbits the sun, but because the earth's gravitational force is there, it get's pulled in, but not enough to continue to orbit the earth. This is shown in the second picture!
