Monday, January 16, 2012

Gravitational Field

The space around a body within which its gravitational force of attraction is experienced, is called its gravitational field.


Gravitational field strength or gravitational field intensity


The gravitational field intensity at a point is defined as the force experienced by a unit mass placed at that point.
gravitational field
Intensity of the field experienced by a test massLet M be the mass of a body around which a gravitational field exists. Let m be a test mass placed in this field. The test mass is so chosen that it does not influence the gravitational field. The arrow over indicates it is a vector quantity, whereas mass is a scalar quantity.
A force  field is the force experienced by the unit mass m. The intensity  of the field is the force experienced by the unit mass.

If the test mass m were free to move, it would move with an acceleration towards M. 
 The gravitational field intensity is defined as the free acceleration experienced by a test mass at that point.
The units in the
  • C.G.S. system are dyne gm-1 or cms-2
  • SI system are Nkg-1 or ms-2

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