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Gravitational energy, or gravitational potential energy, is the potential energy a massive object has because it is within a gravitational field. In classical mechanics , two or more masses always have a gravitational potential .
In classical mechanics, two or more masses always have a gravitational potential. Conservation of energy requires that this gravitational field energy is always negative, so that it is zero when the objects are infinitely far apart. [1] The gravitational potential energy is the potential energy an object has because it is within a gravitational ...
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.
There are various types of potential energy, each associated with a particular type of force. For example, the work of an elastic force is called elastic potential energy; work of the gravitational force is called gravitational potential energy; work of the Coulomb force is called electric potential energy; work of the strong nuclear force or weak nuclear force acting on the baryon charge is ...
Because the force field is conservative, there is a scalar potential energy per unit mass, Φ, at each point in space associated with the force fields; this is called gravitational potential. [6] The gravitational field equation is [7] = = = | | =, where F is the gravitational force, m is the mass of the test particle, R is the radial vector of ...
The potential has units of energy per mass, e.g., J/kg in the MKS system. By convention, it is always negative where it is defined, and as x tends to infinity, it approaches zero. The gravitational field , and thus the acceleration of a small body in the space around the massive object, is the negative gradient of the gravitational potential.
In the case of the gravitational field g, which can be shown to be conservative, [3] it is equal to the gradient in gravitational potential Φ: =. There are opposite signs between gravitational field and potential, because the potential gradient and field are opposite in direction: as the potential increases, the gravitational field strength decreases and vice versa.
An example is the (nearly) uniform gravitational field near the Earth's surface. It has a potential energy = where U is the gravitational potential energy and h is the height above the surface. This means that gravitational potential energy on a contour map is proportional to altitude. On a contour map, the two-dimensional negative gradient of ...