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For example, if you roll a bowling ball straight down a lane, then run up beside it and kick it towards the gutter, you apply a force towards the gutter, but the ball doesn't go straight into the gutter but keep going down the lane, and picks up a little bit of diagonal motion as well.

If you throw the rock out horizontally, it will still fall, but it will keep moving out horizontally as it does so, and falls at an angle. (The angle isn't constant - the shape is a curve called a parabola, but that's relatively unimportant here.) The force is straight down, but that force doesn't stop the rock from moving horizontally.

For example, if you roll a bowling ball straight down a lane, then run up beside it and kick it towards the gutter, you apply a force towards the gutter, but the ball doesn't go straight into the gutter. Instead it keeps going down the lane, but picks up a little bit of diagonal motion as well.

If you throw the rock out horizontally, it will still fall, but it will keep moving out horizontally as it does so, and falls at an angle. (The angle isn't constant - the shape is a curve called a parabola, but that's relatively unimportant here.) The the force is straight down, but that force doesn't stop the rock from moving horizontally.

For example, if you roll a bowling ball straight down a lane, then run up beside it and kick it towards the gutter, you apply a force towards the gutter, but the ball doesn't go straight into the gutter. Instead it keeps going down the lane, but picks up a little bit of diagonal motion as well.

If you throw the rock out horizontally, it will still fall, but it will keep moving out horizontally as it does so, and falls at an angle. (The angle isn't constant - the shape is a curve called a parabola, but that's relatively unimportant here.) The the force is straight down, but that force doesn't stop the rock from moving horizontally.

For example, if you roll a bowling ball straight down a lane, then run up beside it and kick it towards the gutter, you apply a force towards the gutter, but the ball doesn't go straight into the gutter but keep going down the lane, and picks up a little bit of diagonal motion as well.

If you throw the rock out horizontally, it will still fall, but it will keep moving out horizontally as it does so, and falls at an angle. (The angle isn't constant - the shape is a curve called a parabola, but that's relatively unimportant here.) The force is straight down, but that force doesn't stop the rock from moving horizontally.

So the moon "falls" toward Earth due to gravity, but doesn't get any closer to Earth because it's motion is an orbit, and the dynamics of the orbit are determined by the strength of gravity at that distance and by Newton's laws of motion.

So the moon "falls" toward Earth due to gravity, but doesn't get any closer to Earth because its motion is an orbit, and the dynamics of the orbit are determined by the strength of gravity at that distance and by Newton's laws of motion.