Gravity

Gravity:  A heavy topic!

Today, we talked about how strange and interesting gravity is. We know so much about gravity already, but there is so much we still need to learn. What scientists have learned about gravity has allowed us to travel into space and to the Moon. It’s allowed us to send probes out into the solar system and beyond, and even to the surface of other planets, including Venus and Mars!

We learned that gravity depends on the mass of an object, and that all objects have some amount of gravitational force. Students were introduced to Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation and explored the equation’s underlying principles through a series of activities. With a demonstration using balls on a blanket, we showed how massive objects bend the fabric of space-time, causing other objects to gravitate towards them. With just the right velocity and trajectory, a smaller object can go into orbit around a larger object…but if the smaller object is moving too slowly, it can fall and crash into that larger object. It’s a good thing the Earth doesn’t slow down in frictionless space, or it could crash into the Sun!   Gravity is obviously important for astronomers and cosmologists to understand.

We examined how two objects with comparable air resistance will fall to the ground at the same time, regardless of mass. We now know that the same thing will happen if we were to drop the objects on the Moon!  We also compared the weight of an empty bottle with other bottles that weighed as much as the empty bottle would weigh if it were on the moon, Jupiter, or the Sun. The bottle filled with sand is what the empty bottle would feel like on the Sun, where it would weigh more than 27 times as much as it weighs on Earth!

Here’s a great video from Minute Physics about Gravity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_o4aY7xkXg

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