There has been news in public about Mercury that passes in front of Sun which happens very rarely every 100 years, here. So people on Earth can see it through special kind of telescope, of course, mercury looks like a dot on a sheet of paper comparing to the Sun. Thus, it makes me ask: Why doesn't the Sun gravitate Mercury so that in following years, Mercury goes inside the Sun? Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and the Sun has the maximum gravity in our solar system. So, I do not understand why Sun not 'eating' Mercury (take Mercury inside it). How? By the gravity of Sun and weakness of Mercury in terms of size and mass. It is such a very strange phenomenon in our solar system so that a small planet like Mercury takes millions of rotation around the sun and Sun's gravity doesn't affect the rotation of Mercury in a way that it makes it closer and closer so that it goes inside the Sun at the end.
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2$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of How does orbiting work exactly? $\endgroup$– jacob1729Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 15:10
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2$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of How does Newtonian mechanics explain why orbiting objects do not fall to the object they are orbiting? (among others) $\endgroup$– Emilio PisantyCommented Nov 18, 2019 at 15:12
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1$\begingroup$ physics.stackexchange.com/q/9049 has some nice answers $\endgroup$– jacob1729Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 15:12
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1$\begingroup$ Too much wrong information on gravitation. After so many descriptions about stars eaten by companion black holes, it is natural to ask this type of questions. However, as stressed in the above cited pages, gravitation does not work that way. Without dissipation, angular momentum and energy conservation do not allow the collapse of the system. $\endgroup$– GiorgioP-DoomsdayClockIsAt-90Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 15:22
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