text: this is"to be continued" version of an earlier gravity between the space masses question...? boom! and everything came into existence! “planets and  some smaller pieces of matter were caught in a gravitational field of bigger ones, as for an example: moon was caught by earth as it was let’s say horizontally passing it.. but because the earth is not flat and so is not horizontal, (it is round!) the moon picked up altitude in the process of falling into earth. the moon is falling on us even today, yet misses us. so! now it’s spinning in earth’s orbit…but why didn’t and doesn’t it fall down?? well…because the momentum gained during its formation balances out the gravitational force of earth!!! but then the question arises!!! does the momentum decrease over time?? does the moon slow down even a little?? if it does, our future generations are in trouble!!! the same applies with all our planets in all galaxies!!! even a single change in one planet might cause the end of everything!!! whoa! how scary is that?!  answers to questions and corrections of wrong ideas would be welcomed! actually, according to the leading theory, the moon was created when an object approximately the size of mars collided with earth and blasted material into orbit, which then coalesced to create the moon. to answer the question though, the moon is actually slowly moving away from us. some moons that are in retrograde orbit, like triton (of neptune) will eventually lose altitude and plunge into the planet's atmosphere. earth is safe from this fate.