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Posted by on Jan 16, 2016 in TellMeWhy |

What Is Gravity?

What Is Gravity?

When you toss a ball into the air, it comes down because it is pulled to earth by gravity. Gravity is a force that pulls all things on the earth toward the earth’s center. It tries to pull two objects toward each other. The closer you are to an object, the stronger its gravitational pull is.

Gravity keeps us from being hurled off the earth as it whirls around. It is what gives you weight. It is the force that pulls on all of the mass in your body. Anything which has mass also has a gravitational pull.

The more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational pull is. You can easily find out how hard the earth is pulling you by weighing yourself. If it weren’t for gravity, no one would weigh anything at all.

The moon has gravity too. But the moon is much smaller than the earth, so its gravity is weaker. If you weigh 90 pounds here on earth, you would weigh only 15 pounds on the moon.

Gravity is what holds the planets in orbit around the Sun and what keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth.

Content for this question contributed by Christopher Whitesell, resident of Austin, Travis County, Texas, USA