The Solar System gathers the eight planets, both inner and outer, around the Sun. However, what prevents that these celestial bodies collide against the star?
Formed about 4.57 billion years ago, the system formed from a cloud of gas and dust that collapsed under its own gravity. Since then they interact, with some bodies colliding with others (asteroids against planets, for example).
But never against the Sun, nor between the planets.
NASA explains that the planets travel very fast, almost completely sideways with respect to the Sun. In the case of the Earth, it does so at almost 108 thousand kilometers per hour. The only way to hit the star is to cancel that lateral movement.
They move around the parent star in a circular or elliptical path: the force of gravity from the Sun keeps the planets in orbit.
Let’s go with an extreme that is almost impossible to happen. If a planet were stationary in space, the Sun’s gravity would pull it towards itself and they would eventually collide. But the planets are not stationary, but in constant motion, at great speeds.
The orbital speed of a planet depends on its distance from the Sun. Thus we see that those closest to the Sun, the so-called inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, all rocky) They move faster than the farthest planets. the exteriors (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, all gaseous).
The closer we are to the Sun, the greater the gravity, and therefore the orbital velocity. This is what prevents us from colliding with the star.
And the collision between planets is also difficult, for the same reason. explains it Jillian Scudder, Forbes contributor.
“All the large planets have settled into stable orbits that do not interfere with each other, after getting through those first 20 million years of chaos, so the large planets in our solar system are highly unlikely to collide with each other until the dynamics of our Solar System change”, he points out.