Answer the following : (a) You can shield a charge from electrical forces by putting it inside a hollow conductor. Can you shield a body from the gravitational influence of nearby matter by putting it inside a hollow sphere or by some other means ? (b) An astronaut inside a small space ship orbiting around the earth cannot detect gravity. If the space station orbiting around the earth has a large size, can he hope to detect gravity ? (c) If you compare the gravitational force on the earth due to the sun to that due to the moon, you would find that the Sun’s pull is greater than the moon’s pull. (you can check this yourself using the data available in the succeeding exercises). However, the tidal effect of the moon’s pull is greater than the tidal effect of sun. Why ?

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Solution

(a)

The nature of the material and medium of the material do not affect the gravitational force. The mass of the body and distance between two bodies are two factors that have direct effect on gravitational force.

Thus, a body cannot shield from gravitational influence.

(b)

The spaceship size is important factor to feel the gravitational effect by the astronaut. The larger size of spaceship has measurable gravitational effect.

Thus, the astronaut hopes to detect gravity.

(c)

The distance is important factor in the tidal effect. The gravitational force affects the tidal effect by the inverse of the square of the distance. The tidal effect varies with inverse of the cube of distance.

The distance of sun from earth is more than the distance of the moon from ocean water.

Thus, the tidal effect of moon’s pulls greater than the tidal effect of the sun.

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Similar questions

Answer the following:

(a) You can shield a charge from electrical forces by putting it inside a hollow conductor. Can you shield a body from the gravitational influence of nearby matter by putting it inside a hollow sphere or by some other means?

(b) An astronaut inside a small space ship orbiting around the earth cannot detect gravity. If the space station orbiting around the earth has a large size, can he hope to detect gravity?

(c) If you compare the gravitational force on the earth due to the sun to that due to the moon, you would find that the Sun’s pull is greater than the moon’s pull. (You can check this yourself using the data available in the succeeding exercises). However, the tidal effect of the moon’s pull is greater than the tidal effect of sun. Why?

Q. Answer the following:
(a) You can shield a charge from electrical forces by putting it inside a hollow conductor. Can you shield a body from the gravitational influence of nearby matter by putting it inside a hollow sphere or by some other means?
(b) An astronaut inside a small space ship orbiting around the earth cannot detect gravity. If the space station orbiting around the earth has a large size, can he hope to detect gravity?
(c) If you compare the gravitational force on the earth due to the sun to that due to the moon, you would find that the Sun's pull is greater than the moon's pull. However, the tidal effect of the moon's pull is greater than the tidal effect of the sun. Why?

Q. ^{The moon revolves around the Earth in a circular path under the action of gravitational force. What can you conclude about the net work done by gravity in this case?}

Compare the gravitational forces exerted by the Sun and the moon on the Earth. Which one exerts a greater force on the Earth? (Given: mass of the Sun, $M_{s} = 4 \times 10^{31} k g$ , mass of moon, $M_{m} = 6.3 \times 10^{22} k g$ , distance between the Sun and the Earth, $r_{s e} = 1.3 \times 10^{12} m$ and the distance between moon and the Earth, $r_{m e} = 4.5 \times 10^{8} m$ .

Q. When the sun, moon and the earth line up in a straight line, the gravitational forces of the moon and the sun combine to pull the water on the earth much more than just the moon pulling the water alone. This kind of a tide is called a _____ tide.

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