NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Ask an Astrobiologist
"Is it possible for intellegent life to arise from insect-like creatures? If so, what kind of environment would it most likely take place in?"
  1. Question

    How and what causes the planets in our solar system to revolve around the sun?

    Well, there is nothing to stop them. The solar system most likely formed from a spinning disk (a compressed solar nebula), and the planets formed within this disk. Since the formation of the solar system, the planets have been on orbits that circulated the Sun in the center. Associated with such rotation is “angular momentum,” which is conserved. In the vacuum of space, there is essentially no friction, and there is nothing that can remove the angular momentum of the planets. Thus, they keep revolving around the Sun. Dr. Steinn Sigurdsson, Assistant Professor of Astrophysics, Penn State University
    May 31, 2002

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