Space Gravity ?

Question

The Earth has a 'weak' gravitational force which allows us to stand and jump yet it has a powerful enough force to pull the Moon.

The Sun has a massive gravitational force which can pull all the planets, moons,comets, ect, but yet something as small as a space ship or satellite can just fly around without being pulled into the sun.

A man can get out of his ship and work and will not be pulled into any planet or star.

Distance you tell me ?

If you have a magnet and a large and small piece of metal wouldn't you be able to pull the small piece from a futher distance ?

On space scale people and space ships are less then an grain of salt in comparison with worlds and stars.

If the sun can pull Jupiter or lets say Pluto 'a block of ice' into slow orbit from billions and billions of miles away wouldn't anything as small as us be spun around the sun at inconceivable speeds or be pulled into the Sun out right ?

Thank you to all, I don't know why I didn't think of some of this before.

Answer 1

Earth has a 'weak' gravitational force vs. the sun, but the gravitational pull of a body increase as distance to that body decreases.
Earth being closer, we are affected more by the Earth's gravity than the sun's. Same goes for the Moon-closer proximity=greater effect. However both the Sun's & the Moon's gravity does effect on the Earth, said effect most demonsrated by the tides.
All objects withing the solar system are effected by the sun, as it is the solar gravity that keeps the system together.

The reason a man, inside or outside of the ship, doesn't get "pulled in" is because the forward velocity of the ship or man is equal to the 'downward' pull from the force of gravity, meaning, in essence, that the man or ship is literally 'falling' around the gravity field. If foward acceleration exceeds the 'downward acceleration due to gravity, escape velocity is achieved & the object then 'breaks free' of the gravity field.
(Yes, the Earth & the Moon are "falling" around each other & both, as a unit, are "falling" around the sun)

Gravitational fields do tend to be weaker than magnetic fields, but gravity exerts a far greater force over longer distances, also since all mass generates a gravity field, and not all metal generates a magnetic field, no the smaller piece of metal would not necessarily be effected from a greater distance that a large piece of metal by a particular magnetic field. In fact, if both pieces of metal are outside of said magnetic field, neither would be effected by that magnetic field (though they could be affected by each others gravity)

Answer 2

> something as small as a space ship or satellite can just fly around without being pulled into the sun.

But that satellite _is_ being pulled into the sun.

Well, sort of.

First, note that a star's gravity (however strong it may be) does not mean that nearby things will automatically get pulled into it. All it means is that the paths of things flying by will get _bent_ toward the star. Furthermore, that path-bending does not make the object spiral into the star; instead, it turns the path into a specific shape (either an ellipse, a parabola, or a hyperbola, depending on the object's speed and distance). In fact, you have to aim something pretty carefully in order to make it crash into the sun at all--most naturally occurring projectiles will simply zip around the star in one of the 3 types of path mentioned above.

Now consider a satellite orbiting the earth. For convenience, let's say that the satellite is orbiting overhead at noon, so the sun is more or less right "above" it, trying to pull it away from the earth. Why does the sun not "bend" the satellite's path into a sun-orbiting shape?

The fact is, it absolutely does! The reason we don't notice it is that the sun is, at the same time, bending the _earth's_ path in very much the same way. Since the satellite _and_ the planet earth are _both_ being pulled by the sun into nearly identical sun-orbiting paths, the satellite does not leave the vicinity of the earth.

If you could see the whole solar system from a bird's-eye view, and you traced the path of the satellite through space as it (and earth) moved through the solar system, then you would see that the satellite's path would (over the course of a year) trace out a big loopy spirally shape (like a "flower" with hundreds of petals). The overall shape would be a path circling the sun--that's due to the sun's pull on the satellite--and the "petals" would reflect the influence of the earth's pull.

Answer 3

An object's size doesn't matter. Everything at a certain distance is influenced equally by gravity regardless of size. Galileo first proved that by dropping two objects of different size and weight from the leaning tower of Piza and they both hit the ground at the same time. Also, a person in a space ship does not get pulled into the gravity of the earth because the space ship is in orbit, countering the pull of gravity with its speed, so that gravity only appears to be nonexistant.

Answer 4

I think the biggest error you're making is thinking that just the sun's mass dictates its gravitational effect on another body. In fact, the other body's mass plays an equal role -- the force on each body is proportional to the masses multiplied together.

Another issue is that gravity gets weaker with distance from the source -- really weak, as it drops off with the square of the distance away.

Another thing that everyone struggles with is that the motion of an object does not go in the direction of the force that is acting on it at any given time. It turns out that the *change* in its velocity points in the direction of the force on it during a short time interval. This principle (Newton's 2nd law) is the correct way to predict the motions of planets.

Getting a good grip on the mechanics of orbital motion takes some study and practice. I hope you keep at it.

Answer 5

An object orbits anything if it is at a specific distance from the centre of the body and the orbiting object has the needed froward movement to form an arc that matches the curvature of the surface of the body it is orbiting as it falls towards the body due to the the influence that body''s gravity, under these conditions the orbiting body never gets closer to the surface of the body it is orbiting.

Answer 6

no. the force of gravity between 2 objects depends on both of the objects masses. jupiter pulls the sun towards itself and the sun pulls jupiter towards itself.

lets use the sun and jupiter. the sun pulls on alot of mass, so it can pull it towards itself. it depends on both masses, not just one.

and your right at the last part, if the sun had the strongest gravit around then yes we would be pulled into it. but it doesnt, the sun is very far away from us and the earth is pretty much as close as something can get to us. the force of weakens exponentially with distance.

Answer 7

:-)

Merry Christmas!

Answer 8

Ummm.... yeaaah.

Answer 9

i think you answered your ow question