3

What kind of stability it provides to each and every celestial body that each one them are round in shape?

Paran
  • 904
  • 2
  • 10
  • 22
  • Notice that gravity doesn't make all galaxies round, e.g. spirals. – J. Chomel May 18 '18 at 07:53
  • @J.Chomel The OP did specify celestial bodies and galaxies are not single bodies. - the dynamics and forces are different as stars in galaxies would be more closely analogous to an extremely low density gas than a the fluid/solid/high density states celestial bodies have. – StephenG - Help Ukraine May 18 '18 at 12:01
  • @StephenG, thank you. My point is about the duplicate we decided: gravity doesn't make everything round. – J. Chomel May 18 '18 at 12:21
  • @J.Chomel the spirals are an artifact of viewing, not a gravitational formation – Carl Witthoft May 18 '18 at 14:21
  • Huh? I would certainly regard a spiral galaxy as a kind of "gravitational formation." But yes, it's not a "body," per se. To find exceptions, I'd look to the small bodies-- small asteroids are not at all around, consider Oumuamua (https://www.inverse.com/article/38626-nasa-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua). – Ken G May 19 '18 at 04:44
  • 1
    Just sayin' -- there's something wrong with closing a reasonably-asked question as a duplicate of a question where someone asks about making an antigravity machine. The question is about why somewhat small but not too small objects are round. Stars are somewhat small compared to much larger constructs in the universe that aren't roundish while a potato-shaped asteroid is too small to be roundish. This is the one question that nails this central issue. I'm voting to reopen; that older question should be closed as a duplicate of this. – David Hammen May 19 '18 at 09:52
  • @DavidHammen Agreed and reopened. I won't close that one as duplicate of this yet, though. We need to make sure this question gets good answers first. – called2voyage May 19 '18 at 15:15
  • @DavidHammen I'm baffled by the decision to reopen this and I'd note the duplicate has previously been happily used by this site to close at least one similar question as a duplicate. The answers in the duplicates answer this OP's question and I'll be damned if I'm going to duplicate the same answers here. – StephenG - Help Ukraine May 19 '18 at 16:29
  • In two words: potato radius (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/potato_radius) –  May 20 '18 at 19:32

1 Answers1

1

The gravitational is radial only. That means if you tried a different shape then you would have regions, like hills, where a change in the angle would experience a much less attraction towards the center. This region would, over time, be attracted to a different angle with a greater force of attraction. Or spherical. This results in a spherical-like shape.

Natsfan
  • 4,494
  • 1
  • 14
  • 28