In what way does gravity change with distance from Earth?
Gravity is the force that attracts objects towards each other. In the case of the Earth, it pulls objects towards its center. The strength of gravity between two objects depends on their masses and the distance between them. To understand how gravity changes with distance from Earth, we can use Newton's law of universal gravitation.
According to Newton's law, the gravitational force (F) between two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses (m1 and m2) and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (r) between their centers:
F = G * (m1 * m2) / r^2
In this equation, G is the gravitational constant, which is a fixed value.
So, as the distance from Earth increases, the gravitational force decreases. Mathematically, this decrease is described by the inverse square relationship. For example, if you double the distance (r) from the center of the Earth, the gravitational force (F) becomes one-fourth of its original strength (F/4). If you triple the distance, the force becomes one-ninth (F/9), and so on.
To summarize, gravity weakens with increasing distance from Earth because of the inverse square relationship between distance and gravitational force.