Tag Archives: gravity

Constantly Falling

Posted on February 16, 2014 by ilman

Contrary to popular belief, there is gravity in space, in fact gravity is everywhere. On the International Space Station, there is as much gravitational force as it is on Earth’s surface. But then… why are those astronauts (in the video) merrily floating around? Not to ruin the party or anything, but they are not floating […] Continue reading →

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The Earth and Rubber Bands

Posted on February 15, 2014 by juliamac17

So I found this neat video, curtesy of YouTube that helped me understand tides a little better. What confused me most – and I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom this is true – is that the Moon’s gravitational pull on the Earth causes tides on both sides of the Earth. One thing that helped […] Continue reading →

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Gravitational Slingshots

Posted on April 10, 2013 by ibrahim2016

I always wondered why doesn’t the sun slow space probes down when they are leaving the Earth for outer planets. Isn’t there a risk that the probe might change its trajectory and fall into the sun? There is. You see, the more distant the space probe gets from the Sun, the more potential energy it […] Continue reading →

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GRAIL Maps the Gravity of the Moon

Posted on March 20, 2013 by JT McJunkins

  Twin NASA probes orbiting the moon for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Labority (GRAIL) mission have created the most highly detailed gravity field map of any celestial body. Pictured above, this map reveals an abundance of features includ… Continue reading →

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Relativistic Doodles

Posted on March 19, 2013 by ibrahim2016

This post explains how my illustration of general relativistic time dilation works. This is the parent post. Here is an image of a simple classical timeline: There are 2 observers: green and red. They have their own watches. The red observer shoots an arrow towards the green observer. The position of the arrow vs. the […] Continue reading →

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Everyday is SUNday

Posted on March 17, 2013 by ndtidol

The Sun is the single most important object in our solar system. It makes up over 99% of the mass of the solar system, exerts gravitational force over the whole […] Continue reading →

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Gravity around the Solar System

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Elizabeth Merriman

In class, we looked at why an astronaut experiences weightlessness in the space station, even though the force of gravity is not significantly less than on the surface of the Earth.  This is because the space station is falling at the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Black Hole Collisions

Posted on February 20, 2013 by marknshirleyvu

Even with little formal expertise about black holes, most people know that black holes are extremely powerful regions in space in which gravity “sucks in” everything around the black hole with no chance of escape.  Now imagine if two of these massive regions were to collide.  It is easy to infer that said collision would […] Continue reading →

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Physics of Gravity

Posted on February 19, 2013 by YanruChen

What is physics? I have been studying physics since elementary school, but I was never really taught about the definition of physics. My personal understanding of physics is that it is a study of the law of the nature. The nature of physics is truly mysterious. Why do things obey the same law? Why can […] Continue reading →

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Artificial Gravity

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Megan C

Given the importance of gravity to life here on Earth, it’s interesting to think about the lack of gravity used in space exploration. Of course there’s gravity in space, but not anywhere near the amount of gravitational force we feel on Earth. So why doesn’t NASA design its space shuttles and space stations to create artificial […] Continue reading →

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