Is the earth(and the solar system, and our galaxy, and other galaxies) in free fall?

Question

or are we some how...stable. like not moving alot.

Answer 1

i believe that we are suspended in space.

Answer 2

No, everything is influenced by the gravitational force of everything else and running into everything else to change velocity. It's hardly free fall.

Answer 3

According to the big bang theory the universe is currently in a state of expansion and will eventually start contracting back again.  Therefore, if you look at the cosmos as a whole and don't factor the revolutions of planets and galaxies, etc. then the universe won't be in a state of what I would consider free fall until it's starts contracting.  That won't be for a few million years yet.   Kind of like on a trampoline.  I wouldn't consider myself falling until I hit the apex of the bounce therefore it wouldn't be considered a free fall until that point either.

Answer 4

Supposedly the universe is gradually caving in on itself, then it will expand again. In my opinion it's complete c**p, how could they possibly know what it at the other end of the universe when not even the hubble space telescope can see that distance. We will never know, its all theory and speculation by scientists trying to make themselves smarter than they actually are.

Answer 5

Gravity makes us stable, and if we were falling, we'd all be sick to our tummies, hun.

Answer 6

Yes. Any object in orbit is in free fall. We don't feel the sun's gravity, even though it is quite strong where we are, because we are "falling" towards the sun, but because we are going sideways past the sun, we end up in a rough circle around it.

Similarly, the moon is in a free fall orbit around the earth, the sun is in free fall around the galaxy.

Answer 7

All the solar systems seem to be influenced by each other.

I know we not only rotate around the sun, but the sun is also moving.  Solar systems actually collide, and lots of chaos happens.

They have pictures of two solar systems colliding, and think there are a few solar systems that collided, that we got to watch.

The black holes have something to do with how things move also.

Answer 8

Yes, they are all in free fall.

Answer 9

no...no free fall...we're in a vacuum..no gravity therefore no falling...bodies in the universe have their own gravity because of their mass..but that gravity only reaches a certain point

Answer 10

To put it simply, yes. Anything that is in a gravitational field which is not being held up by a solid object is in free fall. The Sun and the Earth just as much in free fall as, say, the International Space Station is.

Answer 11

No. Although not everything is on the elliptic plane, it isn't just falling. We probably would have lost a lot of probes by now.

Answer 12

"Falling" implies a direction (down) and that requires a frame of reference (which way is "up", exactly).

It is believed that the universe is expanding, outward.  The various bits of the universe are moving, but not all in the same direction.

Answer 13

Our galaxy is moving toward the Great Attractor in the direction of Sagittarius at 1.4 million miles per hour (until our sister galaxy collides with us and slows us down).

Answer 14

We're moving around the sun. And the Earth turns on its axis. We're not in free fall, lol. Go to google and type in "how our solar system works." That should give you a visual.

Answer 15

If we take the term "free fall" as it applies to objects orbiting other object(s), then yes everything you listed is in "free fall," except for our galaxy. The Earth is in orbit around the sun. Our solar system is in orbit around the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is not known to be in orbit around anything else, but it does interact gravitationally with other relatively nearby galaxies.

Here's a list of all the velocities relative to the objects you mentioned --

Earth orbits the sun at 67,000 mph

Sun orbits the Milky Way at 560,000 mph

The Milky Way is moving through space at 1.3-million mph

Answer 16

yes

Answer 17

No. They're just moving through space!