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What Keeps Bodies in Orbit? Gravity

The most important force that keeps bodies moving around each other is gravity. Objects are held in orbit by the gravitational pull of the body they move around. The Sun's gravity keeps the Earth and all the other planets rotating around it. The Earth's gravity keeps the moon orbiting around it. The Earth's gravity also keeps the space shuttle in orbit around it.

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Interesting Facts about Gravity:

1) The strength of the gravitational force depends on two things: the amount of mass in the objects and the distance between them. More massive objects exert a stronger pull of gravity than smaller objects. Objects that are close together have a stronger pull of gravity than objects that are far apart.

2) The Earth's gravity pulls everything on its surface and everything in the space around the Earth towards its center. The farther we go from the Earth's surface, however, the weaker this gravitational pull becomes.


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