Wait a minute, I think I just realized the answer like immediately after posting; it s because of cu

Newton s original thought experiment describing the parallels between falling and orbiting. The faster an object moves sideways sisterhood of the traveling pants the longer it stays aloft. Fast enough, and it never hits the ground at all.
Whether gravity sisterhood of the traveling pants pulls an object into orbit or just makes it fall depends on how the object is moving.  Basically, every object wants to follow some kind of orbital path.  If you toss a ball, even that ball is following an orbital path.  If that path happens to intersect the ground, then we say the object fell .  If that path doesn t intersect the ground, then we say it s in orbit.
Anytime an object is in free-fall it s following an orbital path. Gravitationally speaking, until a thing hits the ground it can t tell the difference between sisterhood of the traveling pants the Earth and an Earth s worth of mass crammed into a point (black X).
When in free-fall, all that the ball knows is that there s some gravity around. sisterhood of the traveling pants When it hits the ground it s as surprised as anything else.  The path that any tossed or falling object follows is just the tip of a very elliptical orbital path that, if the Earth s mass were all crammed together in a point, would eventually bring the object back.  Unless you were to throw the ball at a couple thousand mph, it would take about half an hour to complete sisterhood of the traveling pants the loop.
So the only difference between a satellite falling back to Earth and staying in orbit is whether or not the satellite s orbital path intersects the surface of the Earth.  So, Douglas Adams was right; Flying is simple. You just throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Follow-up question: if thrown objects make elliptical paths, then why do they appear to follow parabolic paths even over extreme distances where the elliptical-ness would seem to make itself more apparent? The equations I remember from undergrad sisterhood of the traveling pants physics suggest parabolic paths too, if I remember right. (I remember realizing this back then too, but I forgot about it before I actually asked what the answer was.)
Wait a minute, I think I just realized the answer like immediately after posting; sisterhood of the traveling pants it s because of curvature, isn t it? If the Earth was a perfectly flat plane, sisterhood of the traveling pants then it would be parabolic because the equations assume gravity is always pointing in the same direction at the source and destination over the entire path, and even over extreme distances (so long as they aren t ballistic) you can model the Earth as essentially a flat plane. But over ballistic levels the curvature does become relevant, and so the path is elliptical rather than parabolic?
In fact, if you nail down one focus of an ellipse and let the other focus slide off to infinity, you end up with a parabola. While the center of the Earth (which is one focus of the orbit s ellipse) isn t infinitely far away, it s still pretty far.
Q: Is it possible to fill a black hole? If you were to continuously sisterhood of the traveling pants throw galaxies worth of matter into a black hole, would it ever fill up? And what would theoretically happen if all the matter in the universe was thrown into a single black hole?
Q: If black holes are rips in the fabric of our universe, does it mean they lead to other universes? If so, then did time begin in that universe at the inception of the black hole? Could we be in a black hole?