Question

What is the force of gravity between an object that has a mass of 2,800,000 kg and another mass of 17,000,000 kg which are only 0.01 m apart?

Answer 1

Given,

The mass, m=2,800,000 kg=2.8×10⁶ kg

And another mass, M=17,000,000 kg=17×10⁶ kg

The distance between the two masses, r=0.01 m

The value of the gravitational constant is G=6.67×10⁻¹¹ m³·kg⁻¹·s⁻²

From Newton's universal law of gravitation, the gravitational force between two objects is directly proportional to the product of the mass of two objects and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the objects.

Thus the gravity between the two given masses is

`F=\frac{\text{GMm}}{r^2}`

On substituting the known values,

`\begin{gathered} F=(6.67*10^(-11)*17*10^6*2.8*10^6)/(0.01^2) \\ =31.75*10^6\text{ N} \end{gathered}`

Thus the gravitational force between the two masses is 31.75×10⁶ N