What if space has gravity

We sent you SMS, for complete subscription please reply. Follow Twitter Instagram Facebook. Why is there no gravity in space? Is there gravity everywhere? What effect does distance have on gravity? Wonder What's Next? Try It Out Are you ready to learn more about gravity?

Check out the following activities with a friend or family member: Is gravity alive and well on Earth today? Find out! Grab a selection of different items from around the house. Some pencils, balls, and books should do the trick. Carefully release each item from a height of about four feet above the ground.

What happens? Do any of the items float up to the ceiling? Why not? You guessed it! If they hit the floor, it's because gravity is alive and well. Have fun thinking about what life would be like if gravity did not exist. How would we deal with things floating off all the time? Want to duplicate the effect of gravity that astronauts feel in space? Check out the Gravity Water Drop science experiment online.

You'll need a Styrofoam cup with a hole in it and some water. Follow the directions to see for yourself how gravity affects astronauts in space! Is it possible to defy gravity? Try the Defying Gravity Experiment to see for yourself. All you'll need is some water, a glass, and a piece of cardboard. What do you think? Were you able to defy gravity? Share the experiment with friends and family members. What do they think will happen?

Are they surprised by the result? Did you get it? Test your knowledge. What are you wondering? Wonder Words float force apply explain mass orbit physics indeed relation falling surface absence powerful undetectable misunderstanding everywhere experience gravitational Take the Wonder Word Challenge.

Join the Discussion. LemonJuice Mar 20, I love space. I want to go into space and just float there, flying around. If only I wouldn't die It must be so fun to be an astrunaut!! This was extremely cool! Mar 11, Masi Feb 4, Person Jan 15, Jan 15, It's definitely beneficial for--say--furniture arrangement!

Nov 13, Jelly Nov 12, Oct 15, Spongebob Oct 1, This passage or article idk, gave me important information for space. Oct 3, If it falls down, the same as normal matter, then it has positive gravitational mass, and we can't use it to build a gravitational conductor.

But if it falls up in a gravitational field, that changes everything. With a single experimental result, artificial gravity would suddenly become a physical possibility. The possibility of having artificial gravity is tantalizing, but it is predicated on the existence Antimatter may be that mass, but we don't yet know, experimentally. If antimatter has negative gravitational mass, then by setting up a ceiling of antimatter and a floor of normal matter, we could create an artificial gravity field that always pulled you down.

By building a gravitationally conducting shell as the hull of our spacecraft, everyone inside would be protected from the forces of ultra-rapid acceleration which would otherwise prove lethal. And most spectacularly, humans in space would no longer suffer the negative physiological effects, from balance disorders to the atrophy of your heart muscle, that currently plague today's astronauts.

But until we discover a particle or set of particles with negative gravitational mass, artificial gravity will only be brought about through acceleration, no matter how clever we are.

This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. Jul 23, , am EDT. Jul 15, , am EDT. Jul 8, , am EDT. Jul 1, , am EDT. Jul 20, , am EDT. Jul 19, , am EDT. If you are in an airplane and the plane flies with a downward acceleration, everyone inside will be weightless.

Even a dog. Check it out. View Iframe URL. In the end, there seems to be huge misunderstanding about gravity. I believe the reasoning follows like so: Astronauts are weightless in space. There is no air in space. Therefore, if there is no air, there is no gravity. Here's how you'll see it: Some dude is floating around in space that's OK and then he enters the airlock of a spacecraft, still floating. The airlock door shuts and air is pumped into the chamber and boom —he falls to the ground because now there's gravity.

Here is what it should look like—from the epic movie A Space Odyssey. Not even for Dave. That scene is pretty much perfect. They even have no sound until the air comes in. Now back to the events in The The scene doesn't take place in orbit, it occurs during reentry. This is the part where the spacecraft enters back into the atmosphere and encounters an air resistance force because there is air.

Let me start with a simple force diagram showing the spacecraft at some point during this motion. Clearly, this not weightless. Yes, there is a gravitational force acting on everything—but there is also that air drag force that will make the spacecraft slow down as it moves down. If the human is going to stay inside the spacecraft, there must also be an extra force on that human from the floor.

So, not weightless—in fact, the human would feel more than normal gravity because of the acceleration. You already know this, though, because the exact same thing happens to you in an elevator. As the elevator is moving down and coming to a stop, it is also slowing down. During this time, you would feel a little bit heavier because of the force from the floor pushing on you. You aren't really heavier, you just feel that way because of the acceleration.

Again, there is another movie example where someone gets this reentry physics right. It's from Apollo Notice the water falling from the ceiling. An animation of gravity at work. Albert Einstein described gravity as a curve in space that wraps around an object—such as a star or a planet. If another object is nearby, it is pulled into the curve. Image credit: NASA. Anything that has mass also has gravity. Objects with more mass have more gravity.

Gravity also gets weaker with distance. So, the closer objects are to each other, the stronger their gravitational pull is. Earth's gravity comes from all its mass. All its mass makes a combined gravitational pull on all the mass in your body.

That's what gives you weight. And if you were on a planet with less mass than Earth, you would weigh less than you do here.