The planet jupiter is about 300 times as massive as earth but an object on it's surface would weigh only 2.5 times as much as it would on earth. Can you come up with an explanation?
2007-03-15 05:24:07 · 8 answers · asked by santista 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Although the object is much more massive than the earth, gravitational field strength does not depend just on mass, but also on the DENSITYof the planet. If a planet is very dense, it has more mass concentrated in a small area, and thus more gravity. Jupiter is mostly gas. Look at it this way, if you took two planets of mass 'm' and stood them next to one another, would you expect the gravity on either one of them suddenly to be double? No.
2007-03-15 05:30:13 · answer #1 · answered by Ian I 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gravity is governed by the law F = m1 * m2*G/r. Lets assume you are m1. Therefore that makes g= sum(m2*G)/r. This basically says that the gravitational pull you feel is the sum of all the gravitation pull from all the particles of the planet. This depends on the the distance those particles are from you. Thus g depends not only on the total mass but also the distribution of that mass.
In practice you would replace the sum with integration.
2007-03-15 05:40:53 · answer #2 · answered by beren 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
mass isn't directly proportional to gravitational strength. i'm not sure exactly what the factors that concern how strong gravity is on a planet are, but jupiter is composed mostly of gases and is therefore far less dense than earth. that's probably something to do with it.
2007-03-15 05:29:56 · answer #3 · answered by zeiburakathau 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter
Scroll down about 5 inches. Look for the heading Mass
It starts of with Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets in our solar system combined.
THe answer you are looking for is in this paragraph.
2007-03-15 05:30:29 · answer #4 · answered by Arf 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hmm. but where exactly is the surface of jupiter? the cloud tops? just above its rocky core? its a gas giant so it doesn't really have a solid surface, so i would question anyone who says that you would weigh 2.5 times as much on jupiter's surface.
2007-03-15 05:41:10 · answer #5 · answered by Tim C 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
looking forward to you haven't any longer studied gravitation financial disaster yet so, gravitation is rapidly propotional to mass yet additionally inversely propotional to radius^2 jupiter has 3 hundred circumstances mass even with the undeniable fact that it additionally has bigger radius than earth so no longer lots gravitational tension or weight will boost.
2016-12-14 19:51:01 · answer #6 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's because the radius is so much larger than the earth's.
2007-03-15 05:42:10 · answer #7 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
acc to me the weight depends more on density than on the mass alone... or the size for that matter..
2007-03-15 05:42:19 · answer #8 · answered by uv 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋