How does the gravitational field strength vary with distance from a point mass?
Practice Questions
Q1
How does the gravitational field strength vary with distance from a point mass?
It increases linearly.
It decreases with the square of the distance.
It remains constant.
It decreases linearly.
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
How does the gravitational field strength vary with distance from a point mass?
Step 1: Understand what a point mass is. A point mass is an object that has mass but takes up no space, like a tiny dot.
Step 2: Know what gravitational field strength means. It is a measure of how strong the gravity is at a certain point in space due to a mass.
Step 3: Recognize that gravity pulls objects towards each other. The more mass an object has, the stronger its gravitational pull.
Step 4: Learn that gravitational field strength is affected by distance. As you move away from the point mass, the strength of the gravitational pull decreases.
Step 5: Understand the relationship between distance and gravitational field strength. Specifically, the strength decreases as the square of the distance increases. This means if you double the distance, the gravitational field strength becomes one-fourth as strong.
Gravitational Field Strength – The gravitational field strength (g) is defined as the force per unit mass experienced by a small test mass placed in the field, and it varies inversely with the square of the distance from the mass creating the field.
Inverse Square Law – The principle that the strength of a force (in this case, gravitational) decreases with the square of the distance from the source, mathematically expressed as g = G * (M/r^2), where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass, and r is the distance from the mass.
