Defining Gravitational Field

 There is a force of attraction between all masses

 This force is known as the ‘force due to gravity’ or the weight
 The Earth’s gravitational field is responsible for the weight of all objects on Earth
 A gravitational field is defined as:

A region of space where a mass experiences a force due to the gravitational attraction of
another mass

 The direction of the gravitational field is always towards the centre of the mass
o Gravitational forces cannot be repulsive
 The strength of this gravitational field (g) at a point is the force (Fg) per unit mass (m) of
an object at that point:

 Where:
o g = gravitational field strength (N kg-1)
o Fg = force due to gravity, or weight (N)
o m = mass (kg)
 This equations tells us:
o On planets with a large value of g, the gravitational force per unit mass is greater
than on planets with a smaller value of g
 On such planets such as Jupiter, an object's mass remains the same at all points in space.
However, their weight will be a lot greater meaning for example, a human will be unable
to fully stand up

Weight of Person on Earth and on Jupiter

 A person’s weight on Jupiter would be so large a human would be unable to fully stand up

Worked example

Calculate the mass of an object with weight 10 N on Earth.

Answer:

Step 1: State the gravitational field strength equation

Step 2: Rearrange to make mass the subject

Step 3: Substitute in the known values to calculate

Exam Tip

There is a big difference between g and G (sometimes referred to as ‘little g’ and ‘big G’
respectively), g is the gravitational field strength and G is Newton’s gravitational constant. Make
sure not to use these interchangeably!
Representing Gravitational Fields
  The direction of a gravitational field is represented by gravitational field lines
 The gravitational field lines around a point mass are radially inwards
 The gravitational field lines of a uniform field, where the field strength is the same at all
points, is represented by equally spaced parallel lines
o For example, the fields lines on the Earth’s surface

Gravitational Field Lines for a Point Mass and for a Uniform Gravitational Field

Gravitational field lines for a point mass are radial and, for a uniform gravitational field, are
parallel

 Radial fields are considered non-uniform fields

o The gravitational field strength g is different depending on how far you are
from the centre
 Parallel field lines on the Earth’s surface are considered a uniform field
o The gravitational field strength g is the same throughout

Exam Tip
Always label the arrows on the field lines! Gravitational forces are attractive only. Remember:

 For a radial field: it is towards the centre of the sphere or point charge
 For a uniform field: towards the surface of the object e.g. Earth

Point Mass Approximation

 For a point outside a uniform sphere, the mass of the sphere may be considered
to be a point mass at its centre
o A uniform sphere is one where its mass is distributed evenly
 The gravitational field lines around a uniform sphere are therefore identical to
those around a point mass
 An object can be regarded as point mass when:

A body covers a very large distance as compared to its size, so, to study its
motion, its size or dimensions can be neglected

 An example of this is field lines around planets

Gravitational Field Lines Around a Planet

Gravitational field lines around a uniform sphere are identical to those on a point
mass

 Radial fields are considered non-uniform fields

o So, the gravitational field strength g is different depending on how far
you are from the centre of mass of the sphere

Newton's Law of Gravitation

 The gravitational force between two bodies outside a uniform field, e.g. between
the Earth and the Sun, is defined by Newton’s Law of Gravitation
o Recall that the mass of a uniform sphere can be considered to be a point
mass at its centre
 Newton’s Law of Gravitation states that:

The gravitational force between two point masses is proportional to the product
of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of their separation

 In equation form, this can be written as:

 Where:
o FG = gravitational force between two masses (N)
o G = Newton’s gravitational constant
o m1 and m2 = two points masses (kg)
o r = distance between the centre of the two masses (m)

Newton's Law of Gravitation

The gravitational force between two masses outside a uniform field is defined by
Newton’s Law of Gravitation

 Although planets are not point masses, their separation is much larger than their
radius
o Therefore, Newton’s law of gravitation applies to planets orbiting the Sun

 The 1/r2 relation is called the ‘inverse square law’

 This means that when a mass is twice as far away from another, its force due to
gravity reduces by (½)2 = ¼

Circular Orbits in Gravitational Fields

 Since most planets and satellites have a near circular orbit, the gravitational
force FG between the sun or another planet provides the centripetal
force needed to stay in an orbit
 Both the gravitational force and centripetal force are perpendicular to the
direction of travel of the planet
 Consider a satellite with mass m orbiting Earth with mass M at a distance r from
the centre travelling with linear speed v

 Equating the gravitational force to the centripetal force for a planet or satellite in
orbit gives:
  The mass of the satellite m will cancel out on both sides to give:

 This means that all satellites, whatever their mass, will travel at the same
speed v in a particular orbit radius r
 Recall that since the direction of a planet orbiting in circular motion is constantly
changing, it has centripetal acceleration

A Satellite in Orbit Around the Earth

A satellite in orbit around the Earth travels in circular motion

Kepler’s Third Law of Planetary Motion

 For the orbital time period T to travel the circumference of the orbit 2πr, the linear
speed v can be written as

 This is a result of the well-known equation, speed = distance / time

 Substituting the value of the linear speed v into the above equation:

 Rearranging leads to Kepler’s third law equation:

  The equation shows that the orbital period T is related to the radius r of the orbit.
This is known as Kepler’s third law:

For planets or satellites in a circular orbit about the same central body, the
square of the time period is proportional to the cube of the radius of the orbit

 Kepler’s third law can be summarised as:

Tsquare is directly proportional to r cube

Geostationary Orbits
 Many communication satellites around Earth follow a geostationary orbit
 This is a specific type of orbit in which the satellite:
o Remains directly above the equator, therefore, it always orbits at the same
point above the Earth’s surface
o Moves from west to east (same direction as the Earth spins)
o Has an orbital time period equal to Earth’s rotational period of 24 hours

 Geostationary satellites are used for telecommunication transmissiropons (e.g.

radio) and television broadcast
 A base station on Earth sends the TV signal up to the satellite where it is
amplified and broadcast back to the ground to the desired locations
 The satellite receiver dishes on the surface must point towards the same point in
the sky
o Since the geostationary orbits of the satellites are fixed, the receiver
dishes can be fixed too

Geostationary Satellite in Orbit

Satellite in geostationary orbit remain directly above the equator, and a circular
orbit equal to that of the Earth

Deriving Gravitational Field Strength (g)

 The gravitational field strength at a point describes how strong or weak a gravitational
field is at that point
 The gravitational field strength due to a point mass can be derived from combining the
equations for Newton’s law of gravitation and gravitational field strength
o For calculations involving gravitational forces, a spherical mass can be treated as
a point mass at the centre of the sphere
 Newton’s law of gravitation states that the attractive force F between two
masses M and m with separation r is equal to:

 The gravitational field strength at a point is defined as the force F per unit mass m

 Rearranging to make for F the subject:

 Equating the two forces:

 Cancelling out the mass, m, on each side:

 The equation becomes:

 Where:
o g = gravitational field strength (N kg-1)
o G = Newton’s Gravitational Constant
o M = mass of the body producing the gravitational field (kg)
o r = distance between point source (mass, m) and position in field (m)

Calculating g
 Gravitational field strength, g, is a vector quantity
 The direction of g is always towards the centre of the body creating the gravitational field
o This is the same direction as the gravitational field lines
 On the Earth’s surface, g has a constant value of 9.81 N kg-1
 However outside the Earth’s surface, g is not constant
o g decreases as r increases by a factor of 1/r2
o This is an inverse square law relationship with distance
 When g is plotted against the distance from the centre of a planet, r has two parts:
o When r < R, the radius of the planet, g is directly proportional to r
o When r > R, g is inversely proportional to r2 (this is an ‘L’ shaped curve and
shows that g decreases rapidly with increasing distance r)

Graph Showing Gravitational Field Strength at Distance from Earth's Centre

The value of g increases in direct proportion to distance from the centre of the Earth until the
Earth's surface, then it decreases with distance at an increasing rate

Distances from Centre of Earth in Terms of R

 R increases with distance from the centre of the Earth

 Sometimes, g is referred to as the ‘acceleration due to gravity’ with units of m s-2

 Any object that falls freely in a uniform gravitational field on Earth has an acceleration of
9.81 m s-2

The Value of g on Earth

 Gravitational field strength g is approximately constant for small changes in
height near the Earth’s surface (9.81 m s-2)
 This is because from the inverse square law relationship:

 The value of g depends on the distance from the centre of Earth r

 On the Earth’s surface, r is equal to the radius of the Earth = 6400 km
 Since this is much larger than the distance between the surface of the earth and
centre of mass of an object on it, the small changes in height near the Earth’s
surface make very little difference to the value of g
 If we take a position h above the Earth’s surface, where it is reasonable to
assume h is much smaller than the radius of the Earth (h << R):
 This means g remains approximately constant until a significant distance away
from the Earth’s surface

 The following worked example proves that g decreases by very little even on the
highest point on Earth

Gravitational Potential
 The gravitational potential energy is the energy an object has when lifted off the ground
given by the familiar equation:

Ep = mg∆h

 The gravitational potential energy on the surface of the Earth is taken to be 0

o This means work is done to lift the object
 However, outside the Earth’s surface, G.P.E can be defined as:

The energy an object possess due to its position in a gravitational field

 The gravitational potential at a point is the gravitational potential energy per unit mass at
that point
 Therefore, the gravitational potential is defined as:

The work done per unit mass in bringing a test mass from infinity to a defined point

Calculating Gravitational Potential

 The equation for gravitational potential ɸ is defined by the mass M and distance r:

 Where:
o ɸ = gravitational potential (J kg-1)
o G = Newton’s gravitational constant
o M = mass of the body producing the gravitational field (kg)
o r = distance from the centre of the mass to the point mass (m)
  The gravitational potential is negative near an isolated mass, such as a planet, because
the potential when r is at infinity is defined as 0
 Gravitational forces are always attractive so as r decreases, positive work is done by the
mass when moving from infinity to that point
o When a mass is closer to a planet, its gravitational potential becomes smaller
(more negative)
o As a mass moves away from a planet, its gravitational potential becomes larger
(less negative) until it reaches 0 at infinity
 This means when the distance (r) becomes very large, the gravitational force tends
rapidly towards 0 at a point further away from a planet

Gravitational Potential of a Meteor

Gravitational potential increases and decreases depending on whether the object is travelling
towards or against the field lines from infinity
 Gravitational Potential Energy Between Two Point Masses
 The gravitational potential energy (G.P.E) at point in a gravitational field is
defined as:

The work done in bringing a mass from infinity to that point

 The equation for G.P.E of two point masses m and M at a distance r is:

 The change in G.P.E is given by:

ΔG.P.E = mgΔh

 Where:
o m = mass of the object (kg)
o ɸ = gravitational potential at that point (J kg-1)
o Δh = change in height (m)

 Recall that at infinity, ɸ = 0 and therefore G.P.E = 0

 It is more useful to find the change in G.P.E e.g. a satellite lifted into space from
the Earth’s surface
 The change in G.P.E from for an object of mass m at a distance r1 from the
centre of mass M, to a distance of r2 further away is:

 The change in potential Δɸ is the same, without the mass of the object m:

Change in Gravitational Potential Energy of a Satellite

 Gravitational potential energy increases as a satellite leaves the surface of the
Moon

Maths tip

 Multiplying two negative numbers equals a positive number, for example: