Q&A We asked CLC to send science-related questions and we chose a few to answer...
Curiosity killed Schrödinger's cat... or did it?
Lily Christopherson asked...
Why does the Earth orbit the sun rather than being pulled into it? We know that the sun exerts a huge gravitational force on the Earth because of its immense mass, and the Earth is consequently being pulled towards the sun. But the reason why the Earth does not simply collide with the sun is that there is another force counteracting the gravity of the sun. The Earth in fact has a velocity in the direction perpendicular to the force of the sun’s pull. In other words, without the sun, the Earth would simply travel in a straight line. The outcome of this velocity balancing out with the gravitational force is the stable orbit of the Earth around the sun.
Pull of gravity
Sideways Motion
Giselle Chan asked...
Are we alone in the universe? Earth is the only known planet to maintain life. It includes living things, planets, stars, galaxies, dust clouds, light, and even time. There are many possibilities of other life in this universe, we just don’t have the resources to find out. There could be life but we can’t get a reliable source to prove that. “Alone“ is a world whose meaning can be easily stretched to fit different perspectives. In my opinion, no-one will ever be truly alone. You're all fitted with imagination and there’s always other things that are alive. So in conclusion no, we could never be alone, our own imagination stops that from ever happening.
Newton explained the nature of gravitational orbit in the solar system by using the analogy of a cannonball, also known as Newton’s cannon. He imagined an enormous cannonball fired on the Earth. Before it travels far off it simply hits the ground due to gravity. But if it is fired with a stronger force resulting in a greater initial velocity, it travels a bit further before falling onto the ground. If the force becomes extremely large resulting in a much greater velocity, the cannonball will travel far enough that when it falls due to gravity, it will miss the ground because of the Earth’s curvature. Eventually, when this force is big enough, the cannonball will end up constantly falling but never reaching the Earth, or simply, orbiting around the Earth. As there are no external forces that change the velocity of the Earth once it’s "fired", this is essentially how the Earth orbits around the sun without being pulled into it. Joanna Guan
Valerie Ostapchenko 44
