SPH3U0 4.

1 Gravitational Force Near Earth

The image on the right is a “system diagram of people who have

just leapt out of a plane an instant ago.

a) Draw a rough free body diagram for one of the sky-divers

in the space below;

b) After the skydivers have reached a high
speed downward, the drag force gets larger and
larger. Re-draw your freebody diagram for one of the
skydivers that shows the drag force as slightly less
than the force of gravity.
c) After enough time goes by, the drag force
becomes so great that it equals the force of
gravity. Re-draw the freebody diagram with
equal drag and gravity forces

Change in acceleration and velocity … thinking about the skydiver example, complete the following table;

Just jumped out of the Shortly after jumping out After many seconds have
plane of the plane passed after jumping

Describe the skydivers

velocity (no exact values
required);

Approximate, or describe
the acceleration at
these times;

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The name of the speed that a sky-diver reaches when his/her drag force = gravitational force is; __________

After the sky-diver pulls his parachute, and a very large surface area
opens up for the air to exert a drag force against, how do you think the
gravitational force and drag forces compare? Redraw the free-body
diagram for this moment …

… eventually, the forces even out and the drag force and gravity force become equal again (with the parachute
open) … how do you think this new terminal velocity compares to the terminal velocity of the skydiver without
the parachute?

______________________________________________________________________________________

There is a gravitational field surrounding the earth (and surrounding all matter with
a mass). The Earth exerts an “at-a-distance” force on objects, directed toward its
centre.

How do gravitational fields treat objects with more mass? (consider the effect of
the gravitational field on a 100lb person vs a 200lb person)

_______________________________________________________________
How do gravitational fields treat objects that are a longer distance away? (consider the effect of the gravity on
people when they are at a high elevation)

_______________________________________________________________

The Earth is not perfectly round … in fact, our poles are 21 km closer to the centre of
the Earth than the equator. The gravitation field strengths are therefore different in
these locations (significantly);
Poles: 9.8322N/kg
Equator: 9.7805N/kg

… remember for our Physics calculations, we have typically just applied 9.8N/kg
(good approximation for the gravitational field strength everywhere)
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Mass: a measure of the quantity of matter in an object. We use kg to measure an object’s mass as a unit.
The more mass an object has, the more gravity will affect it.

Weight: the measure of the force of gravity on an object … measured in Newtons.

Weigh-scales - used to measure the mass of objects … it is convenient that gravity helps us to do this.

Why does the girl have a different weight on Earth compared to on the moon?

___________________________________________

There is no gravity felt by the astronauts on the International

space station … would they still have a mass?

__________________________________________________

A 33kg object is found to exert 320N of force on the surface of the planet “Clarksonia”.
a) Calculate the gravitational field strength of Clarksonia.
b) Estimate whether this planet may be larger, or smaller than planet Earth.

A 15kg infant sits on a teeter totter, near the surface of the Earth, where gravitational field strength is 9.8N/kg.
The infant accelerates upward, and then downward at a rate of 0.75m/s2. Determine the Normal force that acts
upward on the infant’s diaper as;
a) She is accelerating up
b) She is accelerating down

HW: page 167, #1-10

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