Question

1. The radius of the moon is one-fourth, and its mass is one eighty-first that of the earth. If the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth is 9.8 m/s2, what is its value on the moon’s surface.

Answer 1

Answer:

You need to keep in mind that gravity is a factor that depends on two factors,

i) The mass of the object.

ii) The distance from the center.

Explanation:

And then there is a third factor that is termed as G, which is constant and is equal to 6.673 X 10^-11 Nm^2/kg^2.

So now we can make use of the equation…. g = GM/r^2.

Approximately working we have,

Radius of the moon = 1.74 x 10^6m

Mass of moon = 7.35 x 10^22 kg

Using the above said formulae we get,

G = (6.673x10^-11) (7.35x10^22)/17400000m

When calculating this, we get g (on the surface of the moon) is equal to 1.62 m/s^2