Newton's Law of Gravitation

Key points

Any two objects with mass exert the same gravitational force upon each other.
- Attractive force that causes the acceleration in uniform circular motion.
The factors that contribute to the force are the Universal Gravitational Constant, the two masses, and the radius (distance) between the center of each mass.
Point masses are ideal objects that have no size, but have mass.
- Practical objects follow the same gravitational law.

Newton’s Law of Gravitation explains and models the gravitational interactions between two objects.

Any two objects with mass exert an equal and opposite gravitational force upon each other (Newton’s Third Law).
- Gravitational forces causes the acceleration in uniform circular motion, as well as acceleration due to gravity, g.
  - This law explains how planets orbit stars (circular motion).
This law is modeled with point masses, or ideal objects that have mass, but no size.
- However, distance matters. Whenever calculating gravitational forces, be sure to account for the radius of each object.

Formula Booklet

This is the formula booklet equation for calculating the magnitude of gravitational force that objects exert upon each other.

G is the universal gravitational constant (6.667e-11).
The two masses are multiplied by each other.
The radius, r, is calculated as the distance between the center of the two objects.
- Force has an inverse square relationship with distance.

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