Gary -
"I have a question. What accounts for the comets, distant asteroids such as the Trojan asteroids, Kuiper Belt objects such as Pluto, Charon, Quaoar, and Cedna, and the Oort Cloud? Aren't all those objects made of heavier materials? Why didn't they fall into or towards the sun?"
Miek -
Centripetal force allows these objects to be 'always; falling toward the sun, but at an arch. Since space is a vacuum, an object flinging toward, but parallel to the sun will catch the suns gravitational pull, and gradually pulled into the sun in a spiral like fashion.
Centripetal force allows these objects to be 'always; falling toward the sun, but at an arch. Since space is a vacuum, an object flinging toward, but parallel to the sun will catch the suns gravitational pull, and gradually pulled into the sun in a spiral like fashion, until A) oscillation occurs, as with our 9 planets and asteroid belt, and becomes satellites, B) collapse into the sun, due to flux in gravity pulls, C) falls out of the field of the suns gravity, because a flux between the sun and or another gravity source like Asteroid -> Sun to Asteroid -> Earth.
Try to remember one thing. The simplist answer is oftin the right answer.
- Miek