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The second major reason for the difference in gravity at different latitudes is that the Earth's equatorial bulge (itself also caused by centrifugal force from rotation) causes objects at the Equator to be further from the planet's center than objects at the poles. The force due to gravitational attraction between two masses (a piece of the ...
The difference of 0.0178 m/s 2 between the gravitational acceleration at the poles and the true gravitational acceleration at the Equator is because objects located on the Equator are about 21 km (13 mi) further away from the center of mass of the Earth than at the poles, which corresponds to a smaller gravitational acceleration.
In physics, gravity (from Latin gravitas 'weight' [1]) is a fundamental interaction primarily observed as mutual attraction between all things that have mass.Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 10 38 times weaker than the strong interaction, 10 36 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 10 29 times weaker than the weak interaction.
A gravitational field is used to explain gravitational phenomena, such as the gravitational force field exerted on another massive body. It has dimension of acceleration (L/T 2) and it is measured in units of newtons per kilogram (N/kg) or, equivalently, in meters per second squared (m/s 2). In its original concept, gravity was a force between ...
Earth's gravity is a bit stronger at the poles than at the equator, because the Earth is not a perfect sphere, so an object at the poles is slightly closer to the center of the Earth than one at the equator; this effect combines with the centrifugal force to produce the observed weight difference. [20]
[4] [5] This indicated the acceleration of gravity was less at Cayenne than at Paris. Pendulum gravimeters began to be taken on voyages to remote parts of the world, and it was slowly discovered that gravity increases smoothly with increasing latitude, gravitational acceleration being about 0.5% greater at the poles than at the equator.
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For the mass attraction effect by itself, the gravitational acceleration at the equator is about 0.18% less than that at the poles due to being located farther from the mass center. When the rotational component is included (as above), the gravity at the equator is about 0.53% less than that at the poles, with gravity at the poles being ...