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Gravity field scaling? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/askscience

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(To be clear, I'm more interested in the reach and scaling of gravity.)

If we were to suddenly double earth's mass, but not it's size, would it's field double in size (I assume strength as well), to the extent that if I were to measure this increased gravity at the same place I measured earth's normal gravity, it would simply be double? If so, the least measurable point of both gravitates should also be the same?

Just wondering if there's diminishing returns or if mass and density affects a gravity field the same regardless of whether it's an asteroid or a billion Solar Masses.

Feel free to share any views I'm not taking into account in regards to gravity fields.

Thanks

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[–] Brokkr 3 points 1 year ago

You've gotten good answers about how much the gravitational force would be at the same position, so I want to answer your 2nd question.

The strength of the gravitational field decreases as the inverse of the distance squared. So double the distance away and the force is one quarter.

That also means it never really ends. Technically you are feeling the effects of gravity of everything in the known universe (as we currently see it). Obviously since most of those things are so far away you don't really notice, but it's still happening.

But let's assume there's some minimum amount we can detect. If you put you're probe at the spot where it was measuring the minimum and earth's gravity doubles, then you would measure double the minimum. You could then move your probe farther away by a factor of the square root is 2 and you would again measure the minimum value.