Senior High School

GENERAL PHYSICS 1
Quarter 2 – Module 2
GRAVITY

Department of Education ● Republic of the Philippines

1
 What I Know

Multiple Choice. Select the letter of the best answer from among the given choices.

1. The gravitational constant has a symbol of __________.

A. C C. k
B. G D. E

2. Who is the proponent of the Universal Law of Gravitation?

A. Newton C. Archimedes
B. Einstein D. Pascal

3. The symbol Fg is referred as the magnitude of the ___________.

A. Electrical Force C. Gravitational Force
B. Rotational Force D. Magnetic Force

4. What is the value of G (in three significant figures)?

A. 6.36 x 10-8 N C. 6.67 x 10-11 N m2 / kg
-36
B. 9.11 x 10 kg D. 9.8 m / s2

5. In which of the following cases would you feel weightless?

A. Traveling through space in an accelerating rocket
B. Falling from an airplane with your parachute open
C. Walking on the moon
D. Taking an exam

6. A useful way to describe forces that act a distance is in terms of __________.

A. Newtons C. distance
B. Period D. field

7. If your mass is 65 kg on Earth, what would your mass be on the Moon?

A. 11 kg B. 11 lb C. 65 kg D. 65 N

8. How much GPE does a 2-kg block have if it is lifted 12.5 m high?
A. 480 J B. 490 J C. 500 J D. 510 J

9. Which of the following is NOT one of Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion?

A. The square of a planet’s period is proportional to its distance from the sun cubed.
B. The area of a planet’s orbital plane is inversely proportional to its speed.
C. A planet sweeps out equal area in an equal time interval.
D. Planets move around the sun in elliptical orbits.

10. He was a Danish astronomer who worked with Kepler. His data collected were used by Kepler
in his laws.
A. Aristotle C. Tycho Brahe
B. Archimedes D. None of them

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 Lesson
NEWTON’S LAW OF
1 UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION

Some of the earliest investigations in Physical Science started with questions that people
asked about the night sky. Why doesn’t the moon fall to the earth? Why do the planets move across
the sky? Why doesn’t the earth fly off into space rather than remaining in orbit around the sun? The
study of gravitation provides the answers to these and many related questions.

Gravitation is one of the four classes of interactions found in nature, and it was the earliest of
the four to be studied extensively. Newton discovered in the 17th century that the same interaction that
makes an apple fall out of a tree also keeps the planets in their orbits around the sun.

In this module, you will learn the basic law that governs gravitational interactions. This law is
universal: Gravity acts in the same fundamental way between the earth and your body, between the
sun and the planet, and between a planet and one of its moons. We’ll apply the law of gravitation to
phenomena such as the variation of weight with altitude, the orbits of satellites around the earth, and
the orbits of planets around the sun.

What I Need to Know

At the end of this module, you should be able to:

• Use Newton’s Law of gravitation to infer gravitational force, weight, and acceleration due to gravity
(STEM_GP12G-IIb-16);

What’s In

The example of gravitational attraction that’s probably most familiar to you is your weight, the
force that attracts you toward the earth. During his study of the motions of the planets and of the
moon, Newton discovered the fundamental character of the gravitational attraction between two any
bodies. Along with his three laws of motion, Newton published the Law of Gravitation in 1687. It may
be stated as follows:

Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is
directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between them.

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Translating this into an equation, we have

where Fg is the magnitude of the gravitational force on either particle, m1 and m2 are their masses, r is
the distance between them, and G is a fundamental physical constant called the gravitational
constant. The numerical value of G depends on the system of units used.

This equation tells us that the gravitational force between two particles decreases with increasing
distance r: If the distance is doubled, the force is only one-fourth as great, and so on. Although many
of the stars in the night sky are far more massive than the sun, they are so far away that their
gravitational force on the earth is negligibly small.

What’s New

Determining the Value of G

To determine the value of the gravitational constant G, we have to measure the gravitational
force between two bodies of known masses m1 and m2 at a known distance r. The force is extremely
small for bodies that are small enough to be brought into the laboratory, but it can be measured with
an instrument called a torsion balance, which Sir Henry Cavendish used in 1798 to determine G.

The figure below shows a modern version of the Cavendish torsion balance. A light, rigid rod
shaped like an inverted T is supported by a very thin, vertical quartz fiber. Two small spheres, each of
mass m1, are mounted at the ends of the horizontal arms of the T. When we bring two large spheres,
each of mass m2, to the positions shown, the attractive gravitational forces twist the T through a small
angle. To measure this angle, we shine a beam of light on a mirror fastened to the T. The reflected
beam strikes a scale, and as the T twists, the reflected beam moves along the scale. After calibrating
the Cavendish balance, we can measure gravitational forces and thus determine G. The presently
accepted value is

G = 6.67428 (67) x 10-11 N ∙ m2 / kg2

To three significant figures, G = 6.67 x 10-11 N ∙ m2 / kg2.

(Because 1 N = 1 kg ∙ m/s2, the units of G can also be expressed as m3 / kg ∙ s2.)

Gravitational forces combine vectorially. If each of two masses exerts a force on a third, the
total force on the third mass is the vector sum of the individual forces of the first two.

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 What Is It

Calculating Gravitational Force

Example:

The mass m1 of one of the small spheres of a Cavendish balance is 0.0100 kg, the mass m2 of
the nearest large sphere is 0.500 kg, and the center-to-center distance between them is 0.0500 m.
Find the gravitational force Fg on each sphere due to the other.

Solution:

Because the spheres are spherically symmetric, we can calculate Fg by treating them as
particles separated by 0.0500 m. Each sphere experiences the same magnitude of force from the
other sphere. We use Newton’s law of gravitation to determine Fg:

Acceleration due to Gravitational Attraction

Example:

Suppose the two spheres in the previous example are placed with their centers 0.0500 m apart
at a point in space far removed from all other bodies. What is the magnitude of the acceleration of
each, relative to an inertial system?

Solution:

Each sphere exerts on the other a gravitational force of the same magnitude Fg , which we
found in the previous example. We can neglect any other forces. The acceleration magnitudes a1 and
a2 are different because the masses are different. To determine these, we’ll use Newton’s second
law:

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 What’s More

PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIVITY

1. The moon has a mass of 7.34  10 22 kg and a radius of 1.74  106 meters. If you have a mass
of 66 kg, how strong is the force between you and the moon?

2. A distance of 0.002 m separates two objects of equal mass. If the gravitational force between
them is 0.0104 N, find the mass of each object.

Lesson
GRAVITATIONAL FIELD
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What’s In

WHY GRAVITATIONAL FORCES ARE IMPORTANT?

A useful way to describe forces that act at a distance is in terms of a field. One body sets up a
disturbance or field at all points in space, and the force that acts on a second body at a particular point
is its response to the first body’s field at that point. There is a field associated with each force that acts
at a distance, and so we refer to gravitational fields,

electric fields, magnetic fields, and so on. We won’t need the field concept for our study of gravitation
in this chapter, so we won’t discuss it further here. But in later chapters we’ll find that the field concept
is an extraordinarily powerful tool for describing electric and magnetic interactions.

What I Need to Know

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Discuss the physical significance of gravitational field; (STEM_GP12RedIIb-18)

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 What Is It
Gravitation is the most important force on the scale of planets, stars, and galaxies. It is responsible
for holding our earth together and for keeping the planets in orbit about the sun. The mutual
gravitational attraction between different parts of the sun compresses material at the sun’s core to very
high densities and temperatures, making it possible for nuclear reactions to take place there. These
reactions generate the sun’s energy output, which makes it possible for life to exist on earth and for
you to read these words.

The gravitational force is so important on the cosmic scale because it acts at a distance, without any
direct contact between bodies. Electric and magnetic forces have this same remarkable property, but
they are less important on astronomical scales because large
accumulations of matter are electrically neutral; that is, they
contain equal amounts of positive and negative charge. As a
result, the electric and magnetic forces between stars or
planets are very small or zero. The strong and weak
interactions that we discussed also act at a distance, but their
influence is negligible at distances much greater than the
diameter of an atomic nucleus (about 10-14 m).

Our solar system is part of a spiral galaxy like the figure

below, which contains roughly 1011 stars as well as gas, dust,
and other matter. The entire assemblage is held together by
the mutual gravitational attraction of all the matter in the
galaxy.

What’s More

Answer as required.

1. Compare the gravitational attraction between objects on earth and interaction of

celestial bodies in space. Which gravitational force is almost negligible? Why?

______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

2. Discuss why the study of a gravitational field is important.

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

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 Lesson GRAVITATIONAL POTENTIAL
3 ENERGY

What’s In

When we first introduced gravitational potential energy in our previous lessons, we assumed that the
gravitational force on a body is constant in magnitude and direction. This led to the expression U =
mgh. But the earth’s gravitational force on a body of mass m at any point outside the earth is given
more generally by Fg = (GmEm) / r2, where mE is the mass of the earth and r is the distance of the body
from the earth’s center.

What I Need to Know

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Apply the concept of gravitational potential energy in physics problems; (STEM_GP12RedIIb-
19)

What Is It
Consider a block with mass, and is tied to the end of a rope and goes up over a pulley while the
other end is being pulled by a man. If the man lets go of the rope, the rope will be pulled downward
with a force equal to the force of gravity of the block. The work performed by the block depends on the
weight and height, Δh. The work done will be:

W = Fd
Since F = mg, then:
W = (mg)( Δh)
where d = Δh

The more work to perform and energy stored in the block, the higher the block is from the ground.

Gravitational Potential Energy, Eg , is the energy stored of an object because of its distance above
the surface of the Earth. The change in gravitational potential energy of an object is expressed as:

Eg = mgΔh
where:
m – is the mass of the object in kilograms
g – is the acceleration due to gravity at 9.8 m/s2
Δh – is the vertical displacement of the object in meters
ΔEg - is the object’s change in gravitational potential energy in Joules

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Sample Problems:

1. How much gravitational potential energy does a 4.0 kg block has if it is lifted 25 m?

Eg = mgΔh
= (4.0 kg) (9.80 N/kg) (25 m)
= 9.8 x 102 J

2. A 61.2 kg boy fell 0.500 m out of the bed. How much potential energy is lost?

Eg = mgΔh
= (61.2 kg) (9.80 N/kg) (-0.500 m)
= -299.8 J ≈ 300 J

What’s More

PROBLEM SOLVING. Answer as required.

1. How much potential energy does a car gain if a crane lifts the car with a mass of 1,500 kg
and 20 m straight up?

2. A basketball of mass 0.0400 kg is dropped from a height of 5.00 m to the ground and bounces
back to a height of 3.00 m.
a. On its way down, how much potential energy does the ball lose?
b. On its way back, how much potential energy does the ball regain?

Lesson
ORBITS
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What’s In

Artificial satellites orbiting the earth are a familiar part of modern technology. But how do they
stay in orbit, and what determines the properties of their orbits? We can use Newton’s laws and the
law of gravitation to provide the answers. We’ll see in the next section that the motion of planets can
be analyzed in the same way.

What I Need to Know

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Calculate quantities related to planetary or satellite motion; (STEM_GP12RedIIb-20
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 What Is It
A circular orbit, is the simplest case. It is also an important case, since many artificial satellites have
nearly circular orbits and the orbits of the planets around the sun are also fairly circular. The only force
acting on a satellite in circular orbit around the earth is the earth’s gravitational attraction, which is
directed toward the center of the earth and hence toward the center of the orbit. This means that the
satellite is in uniform circular motion and

its speed is constant. The satellite isn’t falling toward the earth; rather, it’s constantly falling around the
earth. In a circular orbit the speed is just right to keep the distance from the satellite to the center of the
earth constant.

The radius of the orbit is r, measured from the center of the earth; the acceleration of the
satellite has magnitude arad = v2 / r and is always directed toward the center of the circle. By the law of
gravitation, the net force (gravitational force) on the satellite of mass m has magnitude F g = GmEm / r2
and is in the same direction as the acceleration. Newton’s second law (F = ma) then tells us that

GmEm = mv2
r2 r

Solving this to find the circular orbit, we find

This relationship shows that we can’t choose the orbit radius r and the speed independently;
for a given radius r, the speed for a circular orbit is determined.

The satellite’s mass m doesn’t appear in the equation above, which shows that the motion of
a satellite does not depend on its mass. If we could cut a satellite in half without changing its speed,
each half would continue on with the original motion. For example, an astronaut on board a space
shuttle is herself a satellite of the earth, held by the earth’s gravitational attraction in the same orbit as
the shuttle. The astronaut has the same velocity and acceleration as the shuttle, so nothing is pushing
her against the floor or walls of the shuttle. She is in a state of apparent weightlessness, as in a freely
falling elevator.

True weightlessness would occur only if the astronaut were infinitely far from any other
masses, so that the gravitational force on her would be zero. Apparent weightlessness is not just a
feature of circular orbits; it occurs whenever gravity is the only force acting on a spacecraft. Hence it
occurs for orbits of any shape.

We can derive a relationship between the radius r of a circular orbit and the period T, the time
for one revolution. The speed is the distance traveled in one revolution, divided by the period:

To get an expression for T, we use the equation above to solve for T and substitute:

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 We have talked mostly about earth satellites, but we can apply the same analysis to the
circular motion of any body under its gravitational attraction to a stationary body. Other examples
include the earth’s moon and the moons of other planets.

Sample Problem:

You wish to put a 1000-kg satellite into a circular orbit 300 km above the earth’s surface. What speed,
period, and radial acceleration will it have?

Solution:

The radius of the satellite’s orbit is r = 6380 km + 300 km = 6680 km = 6.68 x 106 m. The orbital speed
is

= 7720 m/s

To find the orbital period, we have:

Finally, the radial acceleration is

What’s More

PROBLEM SOLVING. Answer as required.

1. NASA is expected to send a 2600-kg satellite 450 km above the earth’s surface.
(a) What is its radius?
(b) What speed will it have?
(Hint: Earth’s mass is 5.97 x 1024 kg)
(c) What is its orbital period?
(d) What is its radial acceleration?

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 Lesson KEPLER’S LAWS OF
5 PLANETARY MOTION

What’s In

The name planet comes from a Greek word meaning “wanderer,” and indeed the planets
continuously change their positions in the sky relative to the background of stars. One of the great
intellectual accomplishments of the 16th and 17th centuries was the threefold realization that the earth
is also a planet, that all planets orbit the sun, and that the apparent motions of the planets as seen
from the earth can be used to precisely determine their orbits.

The first and second of these ideas were published by Nicolaus Copernicus in Poland in 1543.
The nature of planetary orbits was deduced between 1601 and 1619 by the German astronomer and
mathematician Johannes Kepler, using a voluminous set of precise data on apparent planetary
motions compiled by his mentor, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.

What I Need to Know

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• For circular orbits, relate Kepler’s third law of planetary motion to Newton’s law of gravitation
and centripetal acceleration; (STEM_GP12G-IIc-22)

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What Is It

The following are the laws developed by Johannes Kepler:

1. LAW OF ORBITS

The first law explains that all planets move in

elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus.

Kepler’s first law means that planets move around

the Sun in elliptical orbits. An ellipse is a shape that
resembles a flattened circle. How much the circle is
flattened is expressed by its eccentricity. The eccentricity
is a number between 0 and 1. It is zero for a
perfect circle.

The eccentricity of an ellipse measures how flattened

a circle it is. For a perfect circle, a and b are the same such that the eccentricity is zero. Earth’s orbit
has an eccentricity of 0.0167, so it is very nearly a perfect circle.

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 2. LAW OF AREAS

The second law describes a line that connects a planet to the

sun and sweeps out equal areas in equal times. When a
planet is near the sun, it travels faster and sweeps through a
longer path in a given time.

It follows from Kepler’s second law that Earth moves the

fastest when it is closest to the Sun. This happens in early
January, when Earth is about 147 million km (91 million
miles) from the Sun. When Earth is closest to the Sun, it is traveling at a speed of 30.3 kilometers
(18.8 miles) per second.

3. LAW OF PERIODS

The third law mathematically expressed as the square of the period of any planet is proportional to
the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

Knowledge of these laws, especially the second (the law of areas), proved crucial to Sir Isaac
Newton in 1684–1685, when he formulated his famous law of gravitation between Earth and
the Moon and between the Sun and the planets, postulated by him to have validity for all objects
anywhere in the universe. Newton showed that the motion of bodies subject to central
gravitational force need not always follow the elliptical orbits specified by the first law of Kepler but can
take paths defined by other, open conic curves; the motion can be in parabolic or hyperbolic orbits,
depending on the total energy of the body. Thus, an object of sufficient energy—e.g., a comet—can
enter the solar system and leave again without returning. From Kepler’s second law, it may be
observed further that the angular momentum of any planet about an axis through the Sun and
perpendicular to the orbital plane is also unchanging.

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 What’s More

MULTIPLE CHOICE. Identify the letter that corresponds to the correct answer.

1. “All planets move in elliptical orbits where the sun s at one focus.” This statement
refers to Kepler’s __________ law of Planetary Motion.
A. First B. Second C. Third D. None

2. From Kepler’s Third Law, the period (P) squared divided by the cube of semi-major axis (d) is
the same for all planets and is expressed as P2 / d3 = k, where k is a constant. One can
conclude that:

A. In the same amount of time, every planet orbits the sun.

B. At the same distance from the sun, every planet orbits the sun.
C. It takes more time to orbit the sun if the planets are farthest from the sun.
D. It takes less time to orbit the sun if the planets are farthest from the sun.

Assessment: (Post-Test)

Multiple Choice. Select the letter of the best answer from among the given choices.

1. The symbol G refers to __________.

A. Acceleration due to gravity C. Potential Energy
B. Gravitational Constant D. Kinetic Energy

2. The Universal Law of Gravitation was formulated by __________.

A. Galileo C. Pascal
B. Archimedes D. Newton

3. The symbol Fg is referred as the magnitude of the ___________.

A. Electrical Force C. Rotational Force
B. Gravitational Force D. Magnetic Force

4. What is the value of G (in three significant figures)?

A. 6.67 x 10-11 N m2 / kg C. 9.8 m / s2
-36
B. 9.11 x 10 kg D. 6.36 x 10-8 N

5. In which of the following cases would you feel weightless?

A. Walking on the moon
B. Falling from an airplane with your parachute open
C. Traveling through space in an accelerating rocket
D. Taking an exam

6. A useful way to describe forces that act a distance is in terms of __________.

A. field C. period
B. Newtons D. distance

7. If your mass is 75 kg on Earth, what would your mass be on the Moon?

A. 21 kg B. 21 lb C. 75 N D. 75 kg

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8. How much GPE does a 10-kg block have if it is lifted 5 m high?
A. 480 J B. 490 J C. 500 J D. 510 J

9. Which of the following is NOT one of Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion?

A. The square of a planet’s period is proportional to its distance from the sun cubed.
B. The area of a planet’s orbital plane is inversely proportional to its speed.
C. A planet sweeps out equal area in an equal time interval.
D. Planets move around the sun in elliptical orbits.

10. He was a Danish astronomer who worked with Kepler. His data collected were used by Kepler
in his laws.
A. Tycho Brahe C. Archimedes
B. Aristotle D. None of them

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Key to Answers

Lesson 1 - What’s More

1. 107 N
2. 25 kg

Lesson 2 - What’s More (Essay) Numbers 1 and 2. (answers may vary)

Lesson 3 - What’s More
1 2.94 x 105 J
2a. - 1.176 J
2b. (+) 1.176 J

Lesson 4
1a. radius = 6.83 x 106 m
1b. speed = 1.995 x 107 m/s
1c. T = 2.15 s
1d. arad = 5.83 x 107 m/s2

Lesson 5
What’s More
1. A
2. C

Assessment (Post-Test)
1. B 3. B 5. C 7. D 9. C
2. - 4. - 6. - 8. - 10. -

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