Earthed

What would happen if you threw a rock midway between two planets?

If you threw a rock midway between two massive objects (e.g. planets), how would the rock move?

Would the pull from one planet cancel out the pull from the other, allowing your rock to continue unmolested? The question of how two heavy objects could come to be near each other in the first place is an odd one. Maybe they are not quite at rest, and are orbiting each other or something else.

Public Comments

1. What would happen if you threw a rock midway between two planets ? You would be the number one draft pick for the Yankee's . You Da' man.
2. The stronger gravity will attract the object, and that would depend on the supposed planet mass, the other planet would also affect the rock so it would run in a circular path around the planet.
3. Did not happen anything. Becuase you may take my example. We send the rocket and super intelligent from our planet to other planet. If half way the rocket may not able to reach what will happen?.
   
   
   
   It depends, every planet has it own properties, it won't affect each other in same manner,what you think. Your the human and we are in the earth planet, so we only can able saw the rock fall from some hight to horizon level. Also it depends where you left the rock and distance between the planets also a matter to consider. If there is no gravitational attraction with the rock. Then it won't fall.
   
   
   
   Above is my understanding, my not be correct in some case.
4. As sinan said, it depends on the mass of both planets. The planet with the greater mass will exert a greater pull on the rock, and will alter the rock's path such that it turns toward the planet.
   
   
   
   However, it will most likely not move into an orbit around the planet. A lot of conditions must be satisfied for something to act as a satellite. Most likely, the rock will continue on through, but with a different heading.
5. If a stone is thrown in the space in between two planets , it amounts to saying that the forces of gravity at the place from which the stone is thrown is nil or negligible as other wise it would require tremendous speed for any object to be thrown out of the pull/ gravity of any of the two planets .in such a situation the stone would continue to travel in the direction of the throw . in in case the stone is within the gravitational pull of any one of the two planets , and is thrown up with sufficient speed to escape from the gravity of that planet , it should continue to move in the direction of the throw if it is not coming within the field of gravity of the other planet . if it happens to come into the gravitational field of any planet , it will change its course of movement in the direction of the resultant of the force of gravity and the force of movement in the direction of the throw.It might continue to orbit around that planet at the distance where the gravity and the centrifugal force of the stone are at equilibrium.
6. Your last sentence has the crux of the problem in it. Planets or other celestial bodies don't just sit stationary waiting for physics experimeters to come along. They are either orbiting a star or each other, and either way, they don't maintain any fixed distance apart. To predict the movement of your rock you would have to know a lot of info about the relative movement of the bodies and the star, if any, they circle.