NASA explains why space bodies are mostly round
The vast majority of planets and their satellites in space are spherical in shape.
According to scientists, the force of gravity makes celestial bodies round, Live Science reports.
“The rounding effect of gravity is the result of the gravitational force that an object – in this case, a celestial body – exerts on itself. Once a planet, or perhaps a moon, has accumulated enough mass, its own gravity will pull it into a spherical shape.” says Anjali Tripathi, an astrophysicist with NASA’s Exoplanet Research Program.
The bodies of the universe were formed after the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago.
| The vast majority of planets and their satellites in space are spherical in shape. The Moon is no exception |
The tiny dust particles circulating in the huge bagel-shaped dust clouds began to collide. If the collision was mild enough, according to NASA, the dust particles coalesced.
Collision after collision created a snowball effect. The more mass a developing planet accumulated, the more its gravity grew and the more matter it attracted.
Bruno Merin, astronomer and head of the European Space Agency’s ESAC Science Data Center in Madrid, said that “gravity pulls all matter towards the center of gravity.”
“It’s like a kitchen sink. All the water will drain out through the hole in the bottom. In the case of planets, every bit of matter tries to get as close as possible to the center of gravity.” – says the scientist.
Planetary bodies will continue to displace matter until they find equilibrium, a state in which every point is as close to the center as possible.
“The only form that achieves this kind of balance in space is a sphere”– said Merin.
The planets Mercury and Venus are almost perfect spheres because they rotate more slowly.
Ice planets are also almost perfectly round because the ice layer is very evenly distributed.
However, the round shape does not mean that every planet is a perfect sphere. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn bulge at their equator due to their rapid rotation.
Saturn looks like a basketball on which someone is sitting, according to NASA.
The Earth has a tiny bulge, it is a flattened or slightly flattened sphere.
However, although the universe is full of spheres, many bodies in space are not even remotely spherical.
Asteroids and comets can have any shape, modified by impact and interstellar rotation.
Mars has a potato-shaped moon called Phobos. In fact, only about 20 of the nearly 300 known satellites of the Solar System have the usual round shape, the rest are more irregular.
Because of their lower mass, they do not have enough gravity to flatten their shape.
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