If I was standing on a weight scale on a scaffold 10 km above the Earth's surface, would the scale register less. How about 20 km, 30 km, 40 km, etc.
I am sure there is an equation (that would be hard to understand). Is there a site that explains equations (nice and slow) for something like that.
2007-08-04 17:16:19 · 6 answers · asked by the_brain_in_a_vat 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
There's no site that I'm aware of.
Remember that the Earth is (roughly) 13,000 km in diameter, so 10 km is not going to make much difference - you'd need very sensitive instruments to measure the difference.
But the force of gravity varies with the square of distance - so if you were 6,500 km out from the surface (the radius of the Earth is 6,500 km, so you'd be twice as far from the center of the Earth), you'd weigh about a quarter as much. (13,000 km out, about one ninth as much, and so forth.)
2007-08-04 17:28:28 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You do weigh less, however, you'd run out of air (exiting the atmosphere) before you'd notice a significant difference in your own weight.
The gravitational field outside the Earth (as opposed to inside it) goes as 1/r^2, where r is your distance from the center of the Earth.
When you're standing on the surface of the Earth, you're about 6373 kilometers from the center. If you go up 1 kilometer, you're now 6374 kilometers from the center. Plugging in each radius into the 1/r^2 formula, we see that you still have 99.9686% as much gravity (and therefore as much weight) as you did before.
2007-08-04 17:26:43 · answer #2 · answered by lithiumdeuteride 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The force of gravity actually decreases the further up you go so you would weigh less as you went higher and higher. The equation for the force of gravity between 2 bodies ie. the Earth and You, has the distance of separation as one of the factors. It's inversely proportional so as separation goes up, force of attraction goes down.
2007-08-04 17:30:02 · answer #3 · answered by john 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yep...ur weight is actually force due to gravity so it's mass times gravity. so when ur close to the ground, the force of gravity is stronger...put as you go up the force gets weaker...but i think the difference is still small though...as long as ur still on earth...i think
2007-08-08 07:58:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. In earth's gravity field you weigh the same. Weight is directly related to gravity.
2007-08-04 17:23:48 · answer #5 · answered by Oriolesfan93 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋
yes.
2007-08-04 19:23:49 · answer #6 · answered by elizabet 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋