Gravity

  • Newtonian gravity
  • Kepler's laws
  • Potential energy
  • Satellite orbits and energy
  • Gravity waves

Newtonian gravity

The gravitational force causes massive particles to accelerate toward each other, it is proportional to the product of the masses of the particles. Unlike the electromagnetic force, which has two kinds of charge and can be attractive or repulsive, the gravitational force is only attractive, since there is only one kind of mass.

The gravitational force is an inverse square function. As you double the distance between the massive particles, the force between them decreases by a factor of one fourth.

The gravitational force is very weak compared to the electromagnetic force.

Force is the negative gradient of the scalar potential. In this case, we can define the gravitational potential as an inverse function of the distance between two massive particles. Gravitational potential is defined as going to zero at infinity.

Video source

Newtonian mechanics works very well for low-gravity regions, like when you are not near a black hole or neutron star. We understand the gravitational force very well - well enough to trust our calculations regarding trajectories of massive objects in gravity fields. (No, stunt on the video did not really place as it is shown...)

Newton's cannon simulator

Escape velocity interactive simulation

The escape velocity is defined as the velocity needed to just escape to an infinite distance without the force due to gravity stopping and reversing the massive particle, accelerating it back toward the body.

Tycho Brahe    Image source

Johannes Kepler    Image source

Tycho Brahe (1546 - 1601) spent many years taking very accurate measurements of the positions of the planets. Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630) was Tycho's student, who compiled the data after Tycho's death. Kepler's analysis of the data gave rise to Kepler's laws, which Newton later used to his law of gravity.

Kepler's Laws

 

  1. Planet orbits are ellipses with the sun at one focus of the ellipse.
  2. A line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in the ellipse over equal times.
  3. The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of its semimajor axis.

@ 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.

A circle is a special case of an ellipse, with only one focal point. An ellipse typically has two focal points. The farther apart the focal points, the greater the ellipticity of the ellipse. The "diameter" across the long side is called the major axis. The semi-major axis (a) is one-half the major axis. This diagram is greatly exaggerated, most planet orbits in our solar system are nearly circular.

Astronomy Interactive simulation

A planet moves faster when it is closer to the sun and slower when it is farther away. In the image above, the same amount of time elapsed while tracing out the red area as the orange area.

Astronomy Interactive simulation

Kepler's third law gives the relationship between a planet's period and its distance from the star. If a planet's orbit is nearly spherical, the distance between the star and planet can be assumed to be a constant radius r.

Kepler's laws

 Determined paths of planets using detailed observation Used Earth’s distance from the sun to scale relative distances to other planets Found orbital speeds by comparing planetary motions over time Summarized planets’ motions into three laws: Planet orbits are ellipses with the sun at one focus A line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times T2 a r3

Image source

What is gh for a satellite at height h above the surface of the earth?

Consider three massive objects at the corners of an equilateral triangle, a distance L apart. What is the gravitational force felt by each?

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 Determined paths of planets using detailed observation Used Earth’s distance from the sun to scale relative distances to other planets Found orbital speeds by comparing planetary motions over time Summarized planets’ motions into three laws: Planet orbits are ellipses with the sun at one focus A line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times T2 a r3
 Determined paths of planets using detailed observation Used Earth’s distance from the sun to scale relative distances to other planets Found orbital speeds by comparing planetary motions over time Summarized planets’ motions into three laws: Planet orbits are ellipses with the sun at one focus A line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times T2 a r3
 Determined paths of planets using detailed observation Used Earth’s distance from the sun to scale relative distances to other planets Found orbital speeds by comparing planetary motions over time Summarized planets’ motions into three laws: Planet orbits are ellipses with the sun at one focus A line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times T2 a r3