2 (d-a) Inertia
Earth revolves around the sun in a nearly circular orbit. The moon orbits Earth in the same way. But what keeps Earth and the moon in orbit? Why don’t they just fly off into space?
The first person to answer these questions was the English scientist Isaac Newton. Late in his life, Newton told a story of how watching an apple fall from a tree in 1666 had made him think about the moon’s orbit. Newton realized that there must be a force acting between Earth and the moon that kept the moon in orbit. A force is a push or a pull. Most everyday forces require objects to be in contact. Newton realized that the force that holds the moon in orbit is different in that it acts over long distances between objects that are not in contact.
The first person to answer these questions was the English scientist Isaac Newton. Late in his life, Newton told a story of how watching an apple fall from a tree in 1666 had made him think about the moon’s orbit. Newton realized that there must be a force acting between Earth and the moon that kept the moon in orbit. A force is a push or a pull. Most everyday forces require objects to be in contact. Newton realized that the force that holds the moon in orbit is different in that it acts over long distances between objects that are not in contact.
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Gravity
Newton hypothesized that the force that pulls an apple to the ground also pulls the moon toward Earth, keeping it in orbit. This force, called gravity, attracts all objects toward each other. In Newton’s day, most scientists thought that forces on Earth were different from those elsewhere in the universe. Although Newton did not discover gravity, he was the first person to realize that gravity occurs everywhere. Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that every object in the universe attracts every other object. The force of gravity is measured in units called newtons, named after Isaac Newton. The strength of the force of gravity between two objects depends on two factors: the masses of the objects and the distance between them. Gravity, Mass, and Weight According to the law of universal gravitation, all of the objects around you, including Earth and even this book, are pulling on you, just as you are pulling on them. Why don’t you notice a pull between you and the book? Because the strength of gravity depends in part on the masses of each of the objects. Mass is the amount of matter in an object. Because Earth is so massive, it exerts a much greater force on you than this book does. Similarly, Earth exerts a gravitational force on the moon, large enough to keep the moon in orbit. The moon also exerts a gravitational force on Earth, as you will learn later in this chapter when you study the tides. The force of gravity on an object is known as its weight. Unlike mass, which doesn’t change, an object’s weight can change depending on its location. For example, on the moon you would weigh about one sixth of your weight on Earth. This is because the moon is much less massive than Earth, so the pull of the moon’s gravity on you would be far less than that of Earth’s gravity. Gravity and Distance The strength of gravity is affected by the distance between two objects as well as their masses. The force of gravity decreases rapidly as distance increases. For example, if the distance between two objects were doubled, the force of gravity between them would decrease to one fourth of its original value. Inertia and Orbital Motion If the sun and Earth are constantly pulling on one another because of gravity, why doesn’t Earth fall into the sun? Similarly, why doesn’t the moon crash into Earth? The fact that such collisions have not occurred shows that there must be another factor at work. That factor is called inertia. Inertia The tendency of an object to resist a change in motion is inertia. You feel the effects of inertia every day. When you are riding in a car and it stops suddenly, you keep moving forward. If you didn’t have a seat belt on, your inertia could cause you to bump into the car’s windshield or the seat in front of you. The more mass an object has, the greater its inertia. An object with greater inertia is more difficult to start or stop. Isaac Newton stated his ideas about inertia as a scientific law. Newton’s first law of motion says that an object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion with a constant speed and direction unless acted on by a force. |
Why do Earth and the moon remain in their orbits? Newton concluded that two factors—inertia and gravity—combine to keep Earth in orbit around the sun and the moon in orbit around Earth.
Earth’s gravity keeps pulling the moon toward it, preventing the moon from moving in a straight line. At the same time, the moon keeps moving ahead because of its inertia. If not for Earth’s gravity, inertia would cause the moon to move off through space in a straight line. In the same way, Earth revolves around the sun because the sun’s gravity pulls on it while Earth’s inertia keeps it moving ahead. 
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