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The gravitational potential (V) at a location is the gravitational potential energy (U) at that location per unit mass: =, where m is the mass of the object. Potential energy is equal (in magnitude, but negative) to the work done by the gravitational field moving a body to its given position in space from infinity.
where F is the gravitational force acting between two objects, m 1 and m 2 are the masses of the objects, r is the distance between the centers of their masses, and G is the gravitational constant. The first test of Newton's law of gravitation between masses in the laboratory was the Cavendish experiment conducted by the British scientist Henry ...
The gravitational potential energy is the potential energy an object has because it is within a gravitational field. The magnitude & direction of gravitational force experienced by a point mass m {\displaystyle m} , due to the presence of another point mass M {\displaystyle M} at a distance r {\displaystyle r} , is given by Newton's law of ...
A common misconception occurs between centre of mass and centre of gravity.They are defined in similar ways but are not exactly the same quantity. Centre of mass is the mathematical description of placing all the mass in the region considered to one position, centre of gravity is a real physical quantity, the point of a body where the gravitational force acts.
In general relativity, the metric tensor plays the role of the gravitational potential in the classical theory of gravitation, although the physical content of the associated equations is entirely different. [1] Gutfreund and Renn say "that in general relativity the gravitational potential is represented by the metric tensor." [2]
Geopotential height or geopotential altitude is a vertical coordinate referenced to Earth's mean sea level (assumed zero geopotential) that represents the work involved in lifting one unit of mass over one unit of length through a hypothetical space in which the acceleration of gravity is assumed constant. [1]
A naive application of Newtonian gravity can yield exactly half this value, where the light ray is assumed as a massed particle and scattered by the gravitational potential well. This approximation is good when 4 G M / c 2 b {\displaystyle 4GM/c^{2}b} is small.
For this the gravitational force, i.e. the gradient of the potential, must be computed. Efficient recursive algorithms have been designed to compute the gravitational force for any N z {\displaystyle N_{z}} and N t {\displaystyle N_{t}} (the max degree of zonal and tesseral terms) and such algorithms are used in standard orbit propagation software.