When I was small, perhaps 4 or 5, I found an atlas with a fold-out picture of the solar system. I showed the Sun and the planets spaced about it, the asteroid belt between the Mars and the outer solar system, and so on.
I could not conceive how these things would be floating around out there, so I reasoned, since things fall on Earth, they must be falling out there too. Only they had to fall all at the same rate to stick together and still be a solar system. What they were falling toward I never defined.
I also thought there must have been balls of gravity to which the dust from interstellar space stuck to form the planets...in the same way lint sticks to tape when your mother dresses you up in uncomfortable clothes to go to a wedding and you played with the dog and now Mom has to get tape and take all the dog hair off your nice clothes.
I also remember being amazed to learn the Germans used the same numbers we do. Sneaky bunch, stealing our numbers.
A childhood belief about outer space
others believed things like this
- when I was small I always thought that the solar system ended, and then it was just white paper after that— sparrow
- I thought if someone hadn't passed the Law of Gravity, we would all be floating around in space.— Trudee
- I used to believe that numbers had gender, that the odd numbers were boys and even numbers were girls. — Evelyn
- I used to believe that I invented the X Y coordinate system.Anon
- I used to believe GPS stood for Ginormous Processing System. — Babre
- When I was younger, my brother told me the police had an infra-red system and could see into everyones house.— Clare, Ireland