What cause planets to orbit the Sun so far away like Pluto, instead of other Planets?

Question

I know they they Pluto is no longer a Planet but how can the gravity of the sun so far away keep it in orbit? Seems to me it would fall into an orbit with other planets near by.

Answer 1

Well, then explain the orbits of the other Keiper Belt objects, or even the objects in the Oort Cloud, that is even further out than the Keiper Belt.  I actually see what you mean, however, it seems a rhetorical question, and therefore, also answer----It is the gravity of the Sun!

Due to the fact that the Sun's power is actually enormous, we can't even imagine what it's like and it began way before we can even imagine.  Millions, and Millions of years ago.  However, it is thought that the Sun is actually younger than the Universe!    

However, why is it that we don't fall off the planet?  The answer to that question is also the answer to your question.  It is "gravity"!        

Answer 2

gravity doesn't really have a limit on reach, just on power.  The sun is bigger than you think

Answer 3

i guess obviously that the suns gravity reaches out that far.

Answer 4

The sun's gravity is weaker the further away you go, but it is still there.  All this means is that the escape velocity (the velocity at which an object would leave the sun and never fall back towards it) is lower.  As long as the orbital velocity stays slow enough to be lower than the escape velocity, the planet is still bound to a solar orbit.

Distant planets orbit the sun far away because they formed out there. The sun formed in the center of a rotating disk of gas an dust that extended quite far from the sun.  Planets formed from the material in this disk. Planets born in the outer reaches of this disk continue to orbit far away today.

This is not the case for Oort cloud objects (distant comets). These are believed to have formed between Jupiter and Neptune's orbits mostly but were flung out by Jupiter. These eccentric orbits then become rounder through interactions (slight tugs) from other stars and clouds of gas in the interstellar medium.

Answer 5

Why should it fall closer?  Once a body (planet or rock or whatever) is at some position in space with some velocity, it is in an orbit.  Unless it meets up with some friction, or has some  rocket power, it will stay in that same orbit.  If the orbit is reasonably far from other planets -- say several 10 million kilometers -- then the orbit will be (approximately) an eclipse around the sun.

Pluto's orbit is very far from  a circle, with a  distance from the  sun varying between 7,376 Mkm and 4,447 Mkm.  But it will never get close enough to Neptune to change those numbers by more than a tiny bit.

Unless the body is VERY far from the sun, half a light-year or more, there  will be almost no effect on its orbit from other stars.  But Pluto is only a few light-hours away.