Explaining the Moon’s Orbit
Our Sun holds 99.8 percent of all the mass in the solar system and it exerts twice the gravitational pull on the Moon than the Earth does. So why is it that the Moon orbits Earth and not the Sun? Around everything in space is a volume where the gravity of the thing in the middle beats out the gravity from something farther away, even if it is more massive. This phenomenon is called the Hill Sphere, where the Earth’s gravity dominates. Science writer and educator Dr. Joe Hanson explains further in this episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart.
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