help my 7 year old just asked

[dragonlord]

my 7 year old just asked me why the world is round anybody have any clues

[fo3nix]

Gravity.

Everything attracts everything else, with gravity.

Image a large amount of rock, floating about until it hits eachother and starts grouping together under gravity. Spinning, too.

Over time, this stuff turns into a spherical shape, because thats the easiest way for it to be (it's most energetically favourable).

Imagine like a cake mixture (loosely speaking) -- just mixing it up, and it tends to form a ball shape. Same kind of thing. It could form a modem of the Eiffel tower, but it's easier to turn into a ball.

[mibn2cweus]

Another good answer here . . . as well as answers to many more questions you will probably be asked in the near future. Just remember to ask answerbank first for a well rounded variety of answers.

[sp1214]

If asteroids are potato shaped according to that link you would expect many more potato shaped craters when they hit a planet. We know that craters are spherical in shape and that asteroids are potato shaped so something amiss here.

[mibn2cweus]

Toss a 0.1m potato 1g/ccm to the ground at 20kps and see what you get