ABOUT GRAVITY
IN SIMPLE TERMS , GRAVITY IS AN INVISIBLE FORCE PULLING YOU TOWARDS THE CENTRE OR THE CORE OF EARTH . IT IS GRAVITY WHICH KEEPS YOU TO THE GROUND WHEN YOU ARE JUMPING . GRAVITY IS NEARLY UBIQUITOUS, MEANING THAT IT IS FOUND EVERYWHERE IN THIS UNIVERSE .
WHO DISCOVERED GRAVITY ?
IT IS NONE OTHER THAN SIR ISAAC NEWTON . NEWTON WAS IN SELF ISOLATION AND REMAINED APART FROM OTHERS FOR 18 MONTHS . IN 1665 (IN BETWEEN OF THE PLAGUE) , HE DISCOVERED GRAVITY WHEN AN APPLE FELL ON HIS HEAD FROM A TREE , CONVINCING HIM TO THINK WHY DID IT FALL DOWN ? HE CAME TO A CONCLUSION THAT A FORCE WAS ACTING ON THE APPLE WHICH MADE THE APPLE FALL DOWN . HE LATER DESCRIBED IT AS AN ATTRACTIVE FORCE BETWEEN 2 OBJECTS AND ALSO SAID THAT EVERY MASS ATTRACTS EVERY OTHER MASS IN THE UNIVERSE.
BUT DID YOU KNOW THAT GRAVITY IS THE WEAKEST OF THE FUNDAMENTAL FORCES ?
IF YOU DO AN EXPERIMENT , A BAR MAGNET WILL PULL A PAPER CLIP UPWARDS . SO , THAT’S DUE TO ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE . BUT DID YOU KNOW THAT IN DOING THAT , THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE LITERALLY OVERCAME THE ENTIRE GRAVITATIONAL FORCE OF OUR PLANET EARTH DUE TO WHICH THE PAPER CLIP WAS PULLED UPWARDS . ACCORDING TO PHYSICISTS’ CALCULATIONS , ELECTROMAGNETISM IS 1040 TIMES STRONGER THAN GRAVITY .
FUN FACTS ABOUT GRAVITY
- Very high gravity can tear entire star systems into pieces.
- Gravity is unidirectional. Meaning it acts in only on direction.
- The range of gravity is infinite.
- Gravity travels exactly at the speed of light and photons, which further means that if the Sun disappeared from the solar system, we, at Earth would continue to orbit nothing for 8 minutes.
PLANETARY GRAVITIES
To take this into a deep level of comparison , here’s how high you could jump on different celestial bodies (also , remember that the more high you can jump , the less gravity is present on that particular celestial body) :-
| CELESTIAL BODY | HOW HIGH CAN YOU JUMP ? |
| Earth | 1.5 ft (0.5 m) |
| Mercury | 4 ft (1.2 m) |
| Venus | 1.7 ft (0.6m) |
| Luna (Earth’s moon) | 9 ft (2.7 m) |
| Phobos (1 of the 2 moons of Mars) | So high that you can’t return ! |
| Ceres (In between the asteroid belt which is in between Mars and Jupiter) | 52 ft (16 m) |
| Jupiter | You can’t jump here But on a surface you’ll jump 0.6 ft (0.2 m) high . |
| Ganymede (Jupiter’s largest moon) | 10 ft (3 m) |
| Saturn | Same as Jupiter , their is no surface present to jump from. But on a surface, you would jump 1.4 ft (0.4 m) high . |
| Titan (Saturn’s largest moon) | 11 ft (3.3 m) |
| Uranus | On a surface , you would jump 1.7 ft (0.6 m) high . (plus , you would freeze!) |
| Neptune | On a surface , you would jump 1.3 ft (0.4 m) high . |
| Triton (One of Neptune’s moons) | 19 ft (5.8 m) |
| Pluto (The long-lost now-dwarf planet) | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
| Eris (Another dwarf planet which constantly goes in and out of the Keiper belt) | 18 ft (5.5 m) |
TEST WHAT YOU LEARNT TODAY WITH THIS FUN QUIZ !
