GIZMOS Student Exploration: Gravitational Force

Name: ________mason______________________________ Date:
________________________



Student Exploration: Gravitational Force

Vocabulary: force, gravity, vector


Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)
On the night of a Full Moon, Mary decides to do an experiment with gravity. At midnight, she
climbs into her backyard tree house, leans out the window, and holds an acorn as high as she
can. She lets go and is disappointed to see the acorn plummet back down to Earth.

1. Why did the acorn fall to Earth instead of rising up to the Moon? ______________________

_____________________gravity pulled it down
____________________________________________________


2. Give two reasons why we feel Earth’s gravity more strongly than the Moon’s gravity.

_________________________earths gravity is stronger and the earth is bigger

_________________________________________________________________________


Gizmo Warm-up
From acorns to apples, gravity causes nearly any object to
fall to Earth’s surface. Gravity also causes the Moon to orbit
Earth and Earth and the other planets to orbit the Sun. The
Gravitational Force Gizmo allows you to explore the factors
that influence the strength of gravitational force.

To begin, turn on the Show force vector checkboxes for objects A and B. The arrows coming
from each object are vectors that represent gravitational force. The length of each vector is
proportional to the force on each object.

1. Move object A around. As object A is moved, what do you notice about the direction of the

two force vectors? ________________they always point at eachother

__________________________________________




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2019

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, 2. How do the lengths of the two vectors compare? ________the same they match
__________________________


3. Drag object A closer to object B. How does this change the gravitational force between the

two objects? _________________it becomes a lot stronger

_____________________________________________


Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A:
• Turn on Show vector notation for each object.
• Check that each object’s mass (mA and mB) is set to
Gravity and mass
10.0 • 105 kg.

Question: How does mass affect the strength of gravitational force?

1. Form hypothesis: How do you think the masses of objects A and B will affect the strength of

the gravitational force between them? _________i think the more mass the stronger

attraction _________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________


2. Predict: How do you think the gravitational force between two objects will change if the

mass of each object is doubled? ________________i think it will increase by more than 2

times ____________________________________


3. Measure: Turn on Show grid. Place object A on the x axis at -20 and object B on the x axis
at 20. The force on object A is now 0.0417i + 0j N. That means that the force is 0.0417
newtons in the x direction (east) and 0.0 newtons in the y direction (north).

A. What is the magnitude of the force on object A? |FA| = _____0.0417 N
__________________

B. What is the magnitude of the force on object B? |FB| = _____0.0417N
__________________


4. Gather data: You can change the mass of each object by clicking in the text boxes. For each
mass combination listed in the table below, write magnitude of the force on object A. Leave
the last two columns of the table blank for now.



This study source was downloaded by 100000809669238 from CourseHero.com on 03-10-2022 13:38:22 GMT -06:00
2019

https://www.coursehero.com/file/54956959/GravitationalForceSE-1docx/