GRAVITY FORCE

Gravity is the force that makes bodies in space attract each other. Everything on Earth is attracted the the biggest and closest body near-by, Earth itself.
This attraction is what we talk about when we say Gravity Force but it also determines our weight and explains why a falling object goes faster faster as it reaches the ground, it’s just super attracted to it!
So, defining gravitational attraction helps us understand weight force and acceleration.

This simulator makes it possible to visually experience and understand the gravitational force that two objects exert on each other, given a mass and a distance.
The student is given the possibility to change the objects’ proprieties and visualize how changing them affects the gravitation attraction.

LEARNING GOALS

• Describe how the distance and mass of objects affects the gravitational force;
• Use measurements to determine the universal gravitational constant;
• Explain Newton’s third law;
• Think of examples to derive the equation that relates mass, distance and gravity.

LEARNING TIPS

• Design experiments to describe the relationship between mass and gravity;
• Visualize the relationship between mass and gravity;
• Answer the following question:
  “How does the gravitational force that a small mass has towards a large one compare to the force that a large mass has towards a small one? What physics law could you use to predict the answer?”