What is Earth's path around th sun?

Answer 1

Cause if it didn't then we would crash into the sun and the other planets orbiting it...

U also need intertia and gravity to keep you on the path... if u didn't then the sun would pull us in and then 2012 wouldn't happen and we would die in like B.C.
because the gravity is pulling it towards it while, the Earth is pulling away.

Answer 2

Earth's path around the Sun is an elliptical orbit, meaning it is not a perfect circle but slightly elongated. It takes approximately 365.25 days for the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun, which is why we have leap years every four years to account for the extra quarter day.

Answer 3

Gravity does in fact pull the Earth directly toward the Sun. But the Earth is traveling sideways at about 67,000 miles per hour, and the speed of the Earth just balances the pull of gravity. So by the time that the Earth would have been pulled down to the Sun, the Earth has already missed. And the Earth has been pulled toward the Sun - and constantly missing! - for about 4.5 billion years or so.

If something were to slow the Earth down, then it could fall into the Sun - but the amount of energy that it would take to slow the Earth down enough would destroy it outright. Since there is no air in space, and no friction to slow it down, the Earth will continue to orbit just as it has for billions of years into the future.

But in another 4 or 5 billion years, the Sun will start to expand and it turns into a red giant. If the Sun expands enough, the outer layers of the solar corona might possibly expand out enough to begin to cause some friction in the Earth's orbit. If that happens, the Earth will begin to slow down and eventually fall into the Sun. We do not yet know how much the Sun will expand, but we do know that it won't happen for a VERY long time yet.

Answer 4

Actually it doesn't. It would need a very specific speed to travel in an exact circle. The Earth, and other planets, travel around the Sun in elipses - being sometimes closer, sometimes farther away, from the Sun.

Answer 5

Two bodies that move around each other in space do so around a central point.

If they are of equal mass, then point of rotation will be midway between them and will look like they are moving around the same circular path.

If they have different masses, then the point of rotation is closer to the object that has more mass, so it will look like the smaller object is orbiting the larger object in an elliptical path, or they are wobbling around each other like the path that a large person and a small person would make as they held hands spinning around on a skating rink.

Since the Sun has more mass than the Earth the point of rotation is very close to the Sun. The Earth is relatively small so the effect is small, thankfully so, otherwise we would be very cold one part of the year and boiling the next.

By the way, that's how we can tell if a star has a planet orbiting it, because its position in space appears to wobble slightly.

Answer 6

Because that's how gravity works. If you take Newton's simple formula

for the force of gravity

F = G M1 M2/R2

and massage it with enough geometry and calculus, it turns out that every

closed orbit around the sun must be an ellipse with the sun at one focus.

So your real question is: "Why does gravity work that way ?",

and the answer is: "That's never been explained yet."

Answer 7

If you work hard in school and do a good job learning your Math and Physics, you'll be

able to take the formula for gravitational force, operate on it with calculus and geometry,

and prove the following:

-- When two bodies are joined under the influence of gravity, one with small mass and

the other with large mass, then ...

-- If the small mass has enough energy to avoid being captured by the large one,

the small one passes by on a path in the shape of a hyperbola, and keeps going.

-- If the small mass doesn't have enough energy to escape the large one, then

the small one moves in a closed orbit in the shape of an ellipse, with the large

mass located at one focus of the ellipse.

-- If the energy of the closed elliptical orbit happens to be just exactly right, then

the eccentricity of the ellipse is zero, the two foci (focuses) are at the same point,

and the orbit is a circle.

-- If the energy of the small mass happens to be just exactly precisely at the escape

energy, not a smidgen more or less, then the shape of the orbit is exactly the divider

between an ellipse and a hyperbola ... which is a parabola.

So the answer to the question is: Because that's how gravity works.

Answer 8

The Earth's orbit around the Sun is an ellipse, a slightly "squashed" circle. Earth's orbit is only about 1% eccentric, so it's almost (but not quite) a circle.

Answer 9

The Earth travels in an ellipse around the sun.

Answer 10

The orbit around the sun is called a revolution