• Question: Is there a place in the universe with no gravitational force?

    Asked by Matt715 to Daniel, Hannah, Maggie, Ry, Scott on 8 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by Ajay.
    • Photo: Maggie Lieu

      Maggie Lieu answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Gravitational force G is proportional to 1/r^2 so the further away from a mass you are the less gravity you feel from it. It’s only ever zero when you are infinitely away from everything but otherwise you will always feel a tiny fraction of a mass’ gravity even if you are really far away.

      However there some special places in the Universe where if you have 2 objects of very large mass (and hence gravity) in an orbit like the Sun and Earth, these ‘lagrangian points’ are where all the forces cancel out so you stay there without being either pulled to the Sun or the Earth. These are some of the favourite places for space missions to put their telescopes and satellites because they dont need to use up all of their fuel trying to stay in orbit!

    • Photo: Ry Cutter

      Ry Cutter answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Technically no! You can ‘feel’ the force of gravity from absolutely everything in the universe. Like Maggie said, we just don’t feel the things that are far away quite so much.
      Great question,

      Ryan

    • Photo: Hannah Middleton

      Hannah Middleton answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Where-ever there’s mass there’s gravity, it is weaker the further you get from an object with mass but you can’t escape completely from gravity. But there are places in space like Maggie said, where the forces in different directions can cancel each other out.

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