Answers to Questions Kids Ask! - Where "Why?" Turns to "Wow!"
Born on this day
September 19, 20111931 - Brook Benton
1934 - Brian Epstein
1928 - Pete Murray
1933 - David McCallum
1940 - Zandra Rhodes
1940 - Bill Medley
1945 - Kate Adie
1946 - Michael Elphick
1948 - Jeremy Irons
1949 - Twiggy
1963 - David Seaman
As far back as 300 BC Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, noticed that everything in space that he could see was round. He made an educated guess that Earth was also round.
We know now that Earth is round because of gravity. Gravitational forces from inside the Earth and from the objects around it pulled Earth into a round shape when it was becoming a planet. Gravity likes objects to be round because that way every point on a sphere’s (Earth is a sphere) surface is as close as it can be to gravity’s center.
Keep in mind also that the Earth is actually an ellipsoid (flatter
around the equator) because of the rotation. When objects spin round they get fatter at the center. Have you ever done pottery? If you do — and it is a lot of fun — notice how a pot gets thicker in the center as it spins round on the potter’s wheel.
Link to this question!
What would happen if the earth didn’t have gravity?
We’d float away into space, I suppose. But think about it: if the Earth didn’t have any gravity, that would mean it didn’t have any mass. If the Earth had…
Who created the globe?
The first globe was created by a German mapmaker named Martin Behaim in 1492. He was inspired by the discoveries of Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer who suggested that the…
Why is there no gravity in space?
Oh, but there is gravity in space! Astronauts only FEEL like there is no gravity because they are continuously falling as if there weren’t. You see, if there were no…
Why do we see the same side of the moon all the time?
The moon travels around the earth once every 29 days. The moon, attracted by the Earth’s gravitational pull, travels with the earth and circles the sun every 365 days. The…
Why don’t you feel upside down in the southern hemisphere?
In space, there is no such a thing as right-side up or upside-down. The globe shows a top and bottom, but it doesn’t mean that such an orientation really exists…