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For astronomical bodies other than Earth, and for short distances of fall at other than "ground" level, g in the above equations may be replaced by (+) where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the astronomical body, m is the mass of the falling body, and r is the radius from the falling object to the center of the astronomical body.
In classical mechanics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. A freely falling object may not necessarily be falling down in the vertical direction. If the common definition of the word "fall" is used, an object moving upwards is not considered to be falling, but using scientific definitions, if it is ...
This model represents the "far-field" gravitational acceleration associated with a massive body. When the dimensions of a body are not trivial compared to the distances of interest, the principle of superposition can be used for differential masses for an assumed density distribution throughout the body in order to get a more detailed model of ...
In classical mechanics, for a body with constant mass, the (vector) acceleration of the body's center of mass is proportional to the net force vector (i.e. sum of all forces) acting on it (Newton's second law): = =, where F is the net force acting on the body, m is the mass of the body, and a is the center-of-mass acceleration.
Instead, the weak equivalence principle assumes falling bodies are self-bound by non-gravitational forces only (e.g. a stone). Either way: "All uncharged, freely falling test particles follow the same trajectories, once an initial position and velocity have been prescribed". [8]: 6
The free-fall time is the characteristic time that would take a body to collapse under its own gravitational attraction, if no other forces existed to oppose the collapse.. As such, it plays a fundamental role in setting the timescale for a wide variety of astrophysical processes—from star formation to helioseismology to supernovae—in which gravity plays a dominant ro
That is, if a body falling from rest covers a certain distance during an arbitrary time interval, it will cover 3, 5, 7, etc. times that distance in the subsequent time intervals of the same length. This mathematical model is accurate if the body is not subject to any forces besides uniform gravity (for example, it is falling in a vacuum in a ...
In other words, a freely moving or falling particle always moves along a geodesic. In general relativity, gravity can be regarded as not a force but a consequence of a curved spacetime geometry where the source of curvature is the stress–energy tensor (representing matter, for instance). Thus, for example, the path of a planet orbiting a star ...