Why don't satellites fall from the sky?

18 Mar 2020

Why don’t satellites fall from the sky?

There are thousands of satellites that orbit (go around) the Earth but we have never heard of any of them falling down.

How do they stay up in the sky and keep orbiting?

Satellites are launched into space using rockets.
 	Rockets move away from the Earth and into space at a very high speed. This speed is kept by the satellite even after it gets removed from the rocket. This speed is called momentum.
 	Upon reaching space, the rocket falls back on Earth. Only the satellite continues to be in space. Because of the momentum, the satellite should move further and further away, deeper and deeper into space, but this does not happen.
 	The reason is Earth’s gravity. Gravity is the ‘pull’ from Earth. It is the reason that a ball or an apple thrown up into the air falls towards the ground.
 	The Earth’s gravity pulls the satellite towards earth while its momentum wants to make the satellite go outward into space.
 	As a result of both these forces working together, the satellite can neither fall to Earth nor move away into space. Instead, it starts to move around the Earth in a circular path (called orbit).

This is why satellites never fall down, but move continuously in a circular orbit around the Earth!

Credits: TCP

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