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In particular, a non-uniform gravitational field can produce a torque on an object, even about an axis through the center of mass. The center of gravity seeks to explain this effect. Formally, a center of gravity is an application point of the resultant gravitational force on the body. Such a point may not exist, and if it exists, it is not unique.
The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light-years (125,000 AU). Lower estimates for the radius of the Oort cloud, by contrast, do not place it farther than 50,000 AU. [153] Most of the mass is orbiting in the region between 3,000 and 100,000 AU. [154]
Hendrik Lorentz (1913) [H 18] obtained coordinates similar to (2d, 2e, 2f) while studying Einstein's equivalence principle and the uniform gravitational field. A detailed description was given by Friedrich Kottler (1914), [ H 19 ] who formulated the corresponding orthonormal tetrad , transformation formulas and metric ( 2a , 2b ).
The mass-center is a fixed property for a given rigid body (e.g. with no slosh or articulation), whereas the center-of-gravity may, in addition, depend upon its orientation in a non-uniform gravitational field.
In classical mechanics, a gravitational field is a physical quantity. [5] A gravitational field can be defined using Newton's law of universal gravitation. Determined in this way, the gravitational field g around a single particle of mass M is a vector field consisting at every point of a vector pointing directly towards the particle. The ...
Figure 1: Tidal interaction between the spiral galaxy NGC 169 and a smaller companion [1]. The tidal force or tide-generating force is the difference in gravitational attraction between different points in a gravitational field, causing bodies to be pulled unevenly and as a result are being stretched towards the attraction.
This precession is due to the non-spherical nature of a rotating body, which creates a non-uniform gravitational field. The following discussion relates to low Earth orbit of artificial satellites, which have no measurable effect on the motion of Earth. The nodal precession of more massive, natural satellites like the Moon is more complex.
In English-language scientific literature prior to about 2001, the term heliophysics was sporadically used to describe the study of the "physics of the Sun". [4] As such it was a direct translation from the French "héliophysique" and the Russian "гелиофизика".