How does gravity work?
Every object in space exerts a gravitational pull on every other, and so gravity influences the paths taken by everything traveling through space. It is the glue that holds together entire galaxies. It keeps planets in orbit. It makes it possible to use human-made satellites and to go to and return from the Moon.
Every particle of mass exerts an attractive force on every other particle.
That force is proportional to the product of the masses and the reciprocal of the square of the distance between them.
Force = constant * M1 * M2 / D^2
if the masses are in kilograms and the distance in meters, the constant is G = 6.67*10^-11 and the force in Newtons.As you can see if you double D, you decrease F by 4.
If yo are near the surface of a big object like earth, then G M1/D^2 is pretty much constant and
F = (GM1/D^2) M2 = g M2
and near earth g is about 9.81
so a one kg mass has weight of 9.81 Newtons
Gravity is the force that attracts objects with mass towards each other. It is one of the fundamental forces in the universe. Sir Isaac Newton first described gravity in his laws of motion.
To understand how gravity works, we need to consider Newton's law of universal gravitation. According to this law, the force of gravity between two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
Mathematically, the formula for calculating the gravitational force between two objects is:
F = (G * m1 * m2) / r^2
Where:
- F represents the gravitational force
- G is the gravitational constant (which is approximately 6.67430 × 10^-11 N m^2/kg^2)
- m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects
- r is the distance between the centers of the two objects
The key point to note here is that the greater the mass of an object, the stronger its gravitational pull. Additionally, the closer the objects are to each other, the stronger the gravitational force becomes.
This law explains why we experience the force of gravity here on Earth, as well as the motion of planets around the Sun and other celestial phenomena. It also applies to objects of any size, from the tiniest particles to massive celestial bodies like stars and galaxies.
So, to summarize, gravity works by the mutual attraction between two objects with mass, which is determined by their masses and the distance between them. This concept is explained by Newton's law of universal gravitation.