• Question: how does gravity work?

    Asked by CARD 5 to Gaia, Jim, Scott on 17 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Scott Lawrie

      Scott Lawrie answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      Hi Card5: nice chatting you you earlier!
      Despite what you’ve learnt, gravity isn’t really a ‘force’, it’s just a curving of space. Heavy things bend space, making a ‘well’. Anything trying to go in a straight line near that well will be curved around by it. It’s not that the Moon is ‘pulled in’ by the Earth’s gravity, it’s just that the Moon is trying to go in a straight line in bent space so it curves around in an orbit!

      Down here on Earth, we’re quite deep inside that ‘gravity well’ so we’re always trying to fall further down into it… thank goodness the ground’s there to stop us, eh? 😉

Comments