Where is gravity strongest on earth

However, the Earth is not uniform material throughout its interior and gravity depends upon exactly how much mass is between you and the center of the Earth. Therefore as you move around the U. For comparison, the acceleration of gravity on the Moon is only 1.

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Get Involved Find a place to get plugged in ». Theatre Production Join us Nov. Show Search Bar:. Earth's gravity comes from all its mass. All its mass makes a combined gravitational pull on all the mass in your body.

That's what gives you weight. And if you were on a planet with less mass than Earth, you would weigh less than you do here.

You exert the same gravitational force on Earth that it does on you. Gravity is what holds the planets in orbit around the sun and what keeps the moon in orbit around Earth. The gravitational pull of the moon pulls the seas towards it, causing the ocean tides. Gravity creates stars and planets by pulling together the material from which they are made.

Gravity not only pulls on mass but also on light. Albert Einstein discovered this principle. If you shine a flashlight upwards, the light will grow imperceptibly redder as gravity pulls it.

You can't see the change with your eyes, but scientists can measure it. Black holes pack so much mass into such a small volume that their gravity is strong enough to keep anything, even light, from escaping.

Watch this video to find out more about these areas of immense gravity! Gravity is very important to us. We could not live on Earth without it. It was responsible for matter clumping together to form clouds of gas that underwent gravitational collapse, forming the first stars — which were then drawn together to form the first galaxies.

And within individual star systems, it caused dust and gas to coalesce to form the planets. It also governs the orbits of the planets around stars, of moons around planets, the rotation of stars around their galaxy's center, and the merging of galaxies. Since energy and mass are equivalent, all forms of energy, including light, also cause gravitation and are under the influence of it. This is consistent with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which remains the best means of describing gravity's behavior.

The most extreme example of this curvature of spacetime is a black hole, from which nothing can escape. Black holes are usually the product of a supermassive star that has gone supernova, leaving behind a white dwarf remnant that has so much mass, it's escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. An increase in gravity also results in gravitational time dilation, where the passage of time occurs more slowly.

For most applications though, gravity is best explained by Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, which states that gravity exists as an attraction between two bodies. The strength of this attraction can calculated mathematically, where the attractive force is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects and causes the ocean tides.

The force of Earth's gravity is the result of the planets mass and density — 5. This results in Earth having a gravitational strength of 9. In addition, the force of gravity on Earth actually changes depending on where you're standing on it.

The first reason is because the Earth is rotating. This means that the gravity of Earth at the equator is 9. In other words, you weigh more at the poles than you do at the equator because of this centripetal force, but only slightly more. Finally, the force of gravity can change depending on what's under the Earth beneath you. Higher concentrations of mass, like high-density rocks or minerals can change the force of gravity that you feel. But of course, this amount is too slight to be noticeable.

NASA missions have mapped the Earth's gravity field with incredible accuracy, showing variations in its strength, depending on location.

Gravity also decreases with altitude, since you're further away from the Earth's center. The decrease in force from climbing to the top of a mountain is pretty minimal 0. However, since the station is in a state of free fall and also in the vacuum of space objects and astronauts aboard the ISS are capable of floating around.

Earth's gravity is also responsible for our planet having an "escape velocity" of Essentially, this means that a rocket needs to achieve this speed before it can hope to break free of Earth's gravity and reach space. And with most rocket launches, the majority of their thrust is dedicated to this task alone. Because of the difference between Earth's gravity and the gravitational force on other bodies — like the moon 1.

While studies have shown that long-duration missions in microgravity i. But given the multiple proposals made to return to the moon, and NASA's proposed "Journey to Mars", that information should be forthcoming! As terrestrial beings, we humans are both blessed and cursed by the force of Earth's gravity.

On the one hand, it makes getting into space rather difficult and expensive. On the other, it ensures our health, since our species is the product of billions of years of species evolution that took place in a 1 g environment.

If we ever hope to become a truly space-faring and interplanetary species, we better figure out how we're going to deal with microgravity and lower- gravity.

Otherwise, none of us are likely to get off-world for very long! Explore further. More from Astronomy and Astrophysics.