What happens to objects on the moon because the moon has less mass than earth?

- Anonymous, Rochester, NY

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What would happen if the moon had less mass?
What happens to objects on the moon because it has less mass than Earth they fall faster they fall at the same rate as they do on Earth they don't fall they fall slower?
Is an object's mass less on the moon than it is on Earth?
Do objects have less mass on the moon?

Greetings!

Many people believe that the Moon does not have any gravity. In fact, the Moon, like every other massive object in the Universe, attracts every other massive object gravitationally. Even subatomic particles such as protons and neutrons exert a gravitational pull on proximate objects, although it is so slight as to be negligible.

We use the term "surface gravity" in reference to the downward "pull" that objects experience when resting or moving on a larger body. Earth's average surface gravity is about 9.8 meters per second per second. When an object is tossed off a building top or a cliff apex, for instance, it accelerates toward the ground at 9.8 meters per second per second. The Moon's surface gravity is about 1/6th as powerful or about 1.6 meters per second per second. The Moon's surface gravity is weaker because it is far less massive than Earth. A body's surface gravity is proportional to its mass, but inversely proportional to the square of its radius.

(To see how one can calculate the Moon's surface gravity, consult the Math Zone 6: http://usm.maine.edu/planet/mz-6-calculating-planets-surface-gravity)

The Apollo astronauts were able to walk on the lunar surface because the Moon exerted a gravitational pull on them. Of course, the astronauts were able to leap higher on the Moon than on Earth because the Moon's surface gravity is so comparatively weak. When on Earth, a fully suited Apollo astronaut weighed about 500 pounds, equipment included. His weight was only about 80 pounds on the Moon.*

We also draw your attention to the now-famous hammer-feather drop demonstration that Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott performed on the lunar surface. He demonstrated that in a vacuum, the falcon feather and a hammer, when dropped simultaneously from the same height, reach the ground at the same time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5_dOEyAfk

You will notice that the objects fall slowly, because their acceleration toward the surface is only 1/6th what it would be on Earth. Commander Scott's demonstration proved that objects of unequal mass fall at the same rate and, of course, proved that the Moon does, indeed, have gravity.

*Some people use the terms "mass" and "weight" interchangeably. In fact, these values are quite different. "Mass" measures body's resistance to inertia. Provided you don't add or lose body matter, your mass is the same here as it would be on the Moon, Pluto or any place in this or any other galaxy. "Weight" measures the gravitational attraction the planet exerts on your body. You do not have the same weight on Earth as you would on the Moon, Pluto, or even the Sun or a neutron star.

Does the moon have more gravity than Earth because it has no atmosphere?

Question Date: 2017-11-16

Answer 1:

Great question! Despite that we can see gravity when we drop an object and it falls to the ground and feel gravity by not floating into space when we jump, gravity is still technically a theory.

Both Newton and Einstein offer different theories explaining gravity, but we will focus more generally around your question.

Anything with mass also has a gravity, and objects with greater mass have a greater gravity. Distance is also involved, as gravity weakens with distance. So Earth’s gravity comes from its mass causing a gravitational pull on all the mass in your body. That gravity pull is equal to your weight . So if you were on a different planet with less mass than Earth, you would weigh less there.

In the context of the universe, gravity is what holds the earth in orbit around the sun. Gravity is also how our universe formed, pulling space dust together to create stars, planets, and other space bodies. The moon’s gravity pulls on Earth’s oceans, causing tides. Earth pulls on the moon, keeping it in orbit around Earth.

Earth's mass is 5.9724 x 1024 kg and the moon's mass is 0.07346 x 1024 kg. This equates to a surface gravity on the moon of 1.62 m/s2, or 0.165 of Earth's 9.8 m/s2 gravity. The atmosphere around Earth does not make its gravity weaker. In fact, Earth's gravity contributes to how there is even an atmosphere. The gases and particles that make up the atmosphere are kept around the surface of Earth due to its gravity preventing the atmosphere from being lost to space.

Answer 2:

The moon actually has less gravity than the earth, but not because of the lack of atmosphere. It's because the moon has much less mass. Mass is just a measure of how much stuff is there in something, so a full-sized truck has more mass than a human. Earth has a lot of mass, 5.97*1024 kilograms, or 96,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the mass of an average adult human! The moon only has about 1/80th of the earth's mass, so it has much less gravity than the earth. Earth's atmosphere is only a tiny part of its total mass, so the atmosphere doesn't contribute a lot to the earth's gravity.

Now what is gravity? It is a force that any one thing with mass can exert on any other thing with mass. A force is simply a push or a pull in any direction. When you throw a ball, for example, you're exerting force on the ball. We don't typically think about this, but the floor in your house is continuously exerting force upwards onto the furniture so the furniture doesn't fall through because of gravity! With gravity, two things with mass will want to move toward each other. However, we humans don't feel our gravity pulling on another person because it's not very big, but we do all feel the pull of Earth's gravity all the time - we're not all floating in the air, because that would be happening without Earth's gravity!

Earth's gravity is the reason we fall onto the ground, the reason we can have activities like skydiving, and the reason that it's so miraculous that we can fly in planes.

Answer 3:

No - the moon has much less gravity than the Earth. When you watch videos of the astronauts from the Apollo program walking around on the moon, you see them bouncing around because the moon's weak gravity can't hold them down the way Earth's gravity holds us down when we walk.

The moon's lack of an atmosphere is in part because of the moon's weaker gravity, but also due to other things as well . For instance Saturn's moon Titan is only somewhat larger than Earth's moon, and has a very dense atmosphere, more than what Earth has. Mars is larger than either moon, and has a much thinner atmosphere. Venus is almost the same size as Earth, and has an even thicker atmosphere than Titan does.

Answer 4:

The earth actually has more gravity than the moon. Larger celestial bodies have more gravitational pull. Your weight actually changes with gravity. You can think of your weight as gravitational force pulling you down towards the center of the earth. If you were standing on the moon, you would actually feel lighter. A person weighing 100 lbs on Earth would weigh 17 lbs on the moon. In fact, if there was no gravity, you would be practically weightless and can start floating away into space. This is the same reason why the earth has an atmosphere but the moon does not. The earth's gravitational pull is strong enough to hold an atmosphere in place while the moon's gravitational pull is not strong enough to do the same.

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What would happen if the moon had less mass?

Without the full-mass moon to hold us steady, life on Earth might have experienced greater seasonal fluctuations. The outlook for life would have been dim—literally. A smaller moon means less scattered sunlight at night—that's all moonlight is—which would mean darker nighttimes.

What happens to objects on the moon because it has less mass than Earth they fall faster they fall at the same rate as they do on Earth they don't fall they fall slower?

The less massive the object is, the more the force of air resistance slows the object down as it falls. If two objects were dropped on the moon, where there is no air, they would fall at the same rate no matter how much they differ in mass.

Is an object's mass less on the moon than it is on Earth?

The mass of objects remains constant throughout the universe. This is because an object is made of he same amount of matter (atoms), no matter where you take it in the universe. If you take an object from the Earth to the moon, only the weight will change.

Do objects have less mass on the moon?

Therefore, the mass of an object on the Moon remains the same as its mass on Earth. But its weight gets less because the gravity on the moon is less than on the Earth.

What happens to objects on the moon because the moon has less mass than earth? moon gets closer to earth: