Re: What is the effect of the gravity of other planets on earth?

Date: Tue Sep 15 09:54:05 1998
Posted By: Mike Francis, Other (pls. specify below), Physics/Astronomy, Self employed/ Amazing Discoveries Productions
Area of science: Astronomy
ID: 904823354.As

Message:

MadSci Network: Astronomy

Dear Maurya,
The law describing the gravitational force exerted by objects on each other is:

F=G(m₁m₂)/r²

where F is the force, G is the gravitational constant, m is the mass of each object and r is the distance separating them. The Sun by the shear quantity of its mass exerts the greatest force on any planet orbiting it. The other planets will have some effect on each of the other planets, though it will be small compared to the effect of the Sun. Solving the effect of each planets mass on all the other's orbits requires considerable mathamatical skills and before the advent of the computer, would have driven graduate students crazy.

The mass of the rest of the galaxy also must effect the orbit of each planet as it goes around the Sun as we travel around the galaxy every 200 million years. To determine the strength of the force would require developing a mathematical model of a many bodied system inside another object with the mass of the galaxy, I'm sure someone is trying to figure that one out but I would be stumped.

If you now want to add in the effect of the mass of the rest of the Universe, you must take into consideration that the Universe is all around the Solar System as well as the galaxy. The mass and size of the Universe seem to change every time astronomers build a new super telescope. We do know the mass is huge but the distances great, so great that how the rest of the Universe effects the orbit of a planet must be very small.

Mike Francis
http://www.gis.net/~mtf/sm.htm

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