The Exciting World of Gravitational Forces

In yesterdays class we started learning several topics including; Gravitational Field Strength, Mass and Weight, and the Law of Universal Gravitation.

Gravitational Field Strenght (GFS)

-the force of gravity is not the same everywhere and is defined as the amount of force acting on a mass of 1Kg. The units used is N/kg

-Fg=mg; where g is the gravitational field strength.

-Example: The force of gravity on a 300.0kg spacecraft on the moon is 489N. What is the GFS on the moon?

F=489N                                      F=mg therefore; g=F/m

m=300.0kg                                                            g= 489N/300.0kg

g=?                                                                        g=1.63N/kg

Mass and Weight

-mass is defined as the amount of matter in an object and is measured in kilograms while weight is described as the force of gravity on an object and is measured in Newtons and is a vector quantity.

-We learned that the mass of an object is not affected by its location. An object with a mass of 50kg on earth would have the same mass in space.  Only the weight is affected by the location of the object.

Law of Universal Gravitation

-To finish off the class we started learning about Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.  Newton found that every particle in the universe attracts every other object.

   

 m= mass

d= distance between center of objects

F= equal and opposite forces of gravity

Indianna is next.