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Moon’s Motion: The Dance of Gravitational Forces
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- Revolution: The moon revolves around the earth.
- Newton’s View: Newton postulated that the same force that causes an apple to fall to the ground also keeps the moon in its orbit around the Earth.
- Orbiting Earth: Although the moon seems to orbit the Earth without falling towards it, that is where the concept of centripetal force comes into play.
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Centripetal Force:
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- When an object moves in a circular path, the force that keeps it moving along that path and prevents it from flying off in a straight line is called the centripetal force.
- Without this force, an object in motion would continue in a straight line, tangent to the circular path.
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Spiraling Secrets: Revealing the Centripetal Force Mystery
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- The moon’s orbit around the earth can be attributed to centripetal force.
- This force is a result of the gravitational attraction between the Earth and the moon.
- Without this gravitational force, the moon would not revolve around the Earth but would move in a straight line.
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Gravity: Earth, Apple, and Newton’s Laws in Motion
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- While it is evident that the earth attracts objects, like an apple falling from a tree, the opposite is also true.
- According to Newton’s third law, the apple exerts an equal and opposite gravitational force on the earth.
- However, due to the enormous mass difference between the earth and an apple, the resulting acceleration of the earth towards the apple is minuscule and imperceptible.
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Planetary Orbits and the Cosmic Dance of Celestial Bodies
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- Planets in our solar system revolve around the Sun due to the gravitational pull the Sun exerts on them.
- Newton deduced from these observations that all objects in the universe exert gravitational forces on each other, irrespective of their size.
[The gravitational force between two uniform objects is directed along the line joining their centres]
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Universal Force: Bridging Celestial Force
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- Gravitation is a universal force that attracts objects with mass towards each other.
- This force is crucial
 for the functioning of our universe, governing the movement of celestial bodies and determining how objects behave on the Earth.
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