Queen of Swords

Originally posted by ndiskeyez (In disguise?) from Trolland :

<strong>WHY are all the planets spherical in shape,excluding of course the obvious flaws in/on the surfaces.</strong>

Because if they weren't spherical, it would be very hard for the gods to play pool with them.

Or didn't you realize that black holes were the pockets?

<strong>Wouldn't there be a chance that at least one of the major stars would be shaped like a square,triangle,or other abstract geometric shape?</strong>

Yes, but natural selection weeded these out.

<strong>What in the orginal concept of the Big Bang explains why this is,if it does at all??</strong>

The Big Bang was caused by the pool stick hitting the white ball (the original lump of matter), so of course everything that was circular rolled into place.

<strong>How could such a cataclysmic event cause such perfectly shaped celestial objects?</strong>

It used plenty of chalk.

<strong>Please excuse my lack of insight into this,but this has been bugging me lately.</strong>

No kidding, I know I'd be worried too if I wasn't aware of the Big Game.

Francois Tremblay

I can only imagine the Christian retort...

"But stars ARE five-pointed ! Look in any kid's book ! Since it's a book, there must be some truth behind it... etc etc... look, I have no brain !"

Sir Nevah Entitar

*decides to help the poor confused one out*

I apologize for the ridicule of the others here, even though it was pretty funny.

The big bang does nothing, first off, to explain it, and doesn't try to.

The reason they're all sphered has to do with the simple law of gravity. The planets, in forming, had all their matter attracted around a single point, their gravitational "centre", if you will, and obviously this would create a sphere.

The reason the others do not exist is that first off, a sphere is the most "stable" of shapes in that it cannot very easily collapse in on itself like, say, a triangular prism can by having one of its points ripped off. Also that a sphere is mostly congruent all around itself. All other shapes would collapse in around their gravitational centres, forming spheres. In a sense, this is natural selection, but I use this term very usely.

No, a planet cannot be a triangle or rectangle, as those are two-dimensional. But I'm sure you meant prisms.

Note to sef... quit trying to sound scientific... <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Sojourner553

Gravity makes them spheres. But they are NOT perfect spheres. Remember your geography. The earth is longer at the equator and flattened at the poles because of the earth's spin.

Philosophers have generally posited PERFECT spheres as requiring a Creator. Since the planets are NOT perfect spheres, this is a moot point. By the way, the orbits of planets are ALSO not perfect circles. Medieval philosophers once conceived of the music of the spheres where angels were pushing the planets in their orbits.

(Scientists never have seen them angels!)


Sojourner

ohwilleke

Also recall that many planets and stars don't have solid surfaces. Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus, and Earth all have substantial atmospheres. Fluids are very responsive to gravity since they have little internal structure of their own to maintain a shape, and when there is an object with a center of gravity, they form a sphere around it. Fluids also erode high points and low points over time (which planets have plenty of).

Similarly, the Moon is believed to have formed when an object hit the Earth, causing it to spew molten material and smaller particles, which then congealed guided by gravity while it was still a fluid.

Furthermore, many planets, such as Earth, have fluid cores upon which a crust more or less floats. The fluids within the Earth (magma) may be fairly viscous, but, ultimately they too are very responsive to gravity.

There are objects with very irregular shapes in space, but mostly they are smaller objects, like asteroids and tiny planets, where the influence of gravity is not predominant.