Question

Can you please help me with this I got -651 but I think it’s wrong

Answer 1

Given,

The mass of the person, m=88.5 kg

The mass of the earth, M=5.97×10²⁴ kg

The radius of the earth, R=6.38×10⁶ m

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

Thus the magnitude gravitational force acting on the person is,

`F=(GMm)/(R^2)`

Where G=6.67×10⁻¹¹ m³ kg⁻¹ s⁻² is the gravitational constant.

On substituting the known values,

`\begin{gathered} F=(6.67*10^(-11)*5.97*10^(24)*88.5)/((6.38*10^6)^2) \\ =865.77\text{ N} \\ \approx870\text{ N} \end{gathered}`

Thus the gravitational force acting on the person is 870 N