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Q:

Does the Earth need gravity to orbit around the sun?

A:

Yes: orbits are actually caused by gravity!

 

Gravity depends on the mass of an object. The earth is a huge, heavy planet, which pulls on everything around it. When you throw a ball, it gets pulled back to earth, but imagine you threw it so hard, it missed the earth altogether. It just keeps fallign and missing, falling and missing, so it's circling around and around the planet. That's how the moon orbits around earth, and earth around the sun.

 

If the sun did not exert a gravitational pull ont he earth, we would be thrown out into space.

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