What maintains the speed of earth as it moves in its orbit around the sun?
How interesting that you would think to ask this question. It is quite mysterious isn’t it? I mean here we have this planet and seven others as well, that just keeps going and going and going for millions of years and it will keep doing so for millions of years more. The sun will supernova long before earth comes anywhere near plummeting into it. So, yeah, what keeps it going? One of the earlier answers said it in one word: inertia. Other answers alluded to this when they referred to Newton’s laws of motion. But, that’s it. The earth is in motion and there is nothing to stop its motion so it keeps moving. The earth would keep moving in a straight line except that the sun is curving the space around it and that curvature is why the earth’s path is not a straight line. All that sounds good, right? Except that, technically, it is all wrong! One of the answers alluded to Newton’s third law but they did not finish their thought. So, let’s go through the laws and see how each applies to eart
