Question: hiyaaa what makes the world go round ?????????????

Carolyn McGettigan answered on 24 Mar 2010:

Gravity makes the Earth orbit the sun. Earth is basically continually falling toward the Sun but it has sufficient velocity that it manages to avoid collision and continue in a circular path in relation to the Sun. A physicist reading my explanation would probably cry but I’ve given it a shot!

Earth also spins continually around its own axis. This is due to something called ‘angular momentum’. In the big bang, particles came together to form clumps of dust and gas that became the planets. These clumps all have some sort of natural rotation that has to be preserved, and the more material that gathered into the planets, the faster they spun. Apparently, this ‘angular momentum’ is what ice skaters take advantage of when they put their arms up above their heads in order to spin faster…pretty neat. And the reason the planets keep spinning is that space is a vacuum, so there is nothing to resist the spinning – no friction. However, Earth’s spin is slowed by the tidal effects of the Moon, and apparently it’s getting progressively slower (though at something like 1mm per year).

I also found out just now are that all the planets in our solar system spin in the same direction except Venus – didn’t know that! – and that a collision in space might have caused the Earth to spin at an angle of 23 degrees.