Newton's universal law of gravitation states that all objects attract each other with a force directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. When considering objects on the surface of the Earth, the force is directly proportional to the product of the mass of the object and the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface. Since the Earth is larger than any other object under consideration, the object is drawn toward the Earth.
Explanation:
The magnitude of the gravitational force between two objects is given by Newton's universal law of gravitation:
where :
is the gravitational constant
m1, m2 are the masses of the two objects
r is the separation between them
This force is always attractive.
At the Earth's surface, this can be rewritten as
with
where M is the mass of the Earth, R is its radius, and m the mass of the object.
g is called acceleration due to gravity and it is the value of the acceleration due to the force of gravity of any object near the Earth's surface (its value is approximately . Since the Earth is much more massive than any other object, the object is attracted towards the Earth (so, it accelerates towards it); the Earth is also attracted by the object, however, being its mass so large, its acceleration is negligible.
Learn more about gravitational force:
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