What Is Gravity?

Gravity is vital to our existence, but do you know why it exists or what it is?

Why is something that we can’t see so important to our survival and the workings of the solar system?

In this article, we will take a look at what gravity actually is and how it works.We all know that gravity exists and that it keeps us on the ground, gravity is a force that pulls objects towards itself.

The word gravity comes from the Latin word gravitas which means weight.

On Earth, gravity gives objects weight, whereas on the Moon the gravity controls earth’s tides.

Gravity can have many different roles across the solar system; it is the reason why all the planets stay in orbit around the sun.

Here on Earth gravity is the reason things fall when we drop them, like when we jump, we land back on earth.Gravity is measured in what is called a Gravimetry and this measures the strength of a gravitational field.

The instrument used to measure this is called a gravimeter, and to put it simply it measures the constant acceleration of gravity in a downward direction.

Experiments using a gravimeter have shown that the gravitational force even varies across the earth’s surface by around ±0.5%.

This is mostly because of the constant movements of the Sun and Moon which both affect the gravitational pull of the Earth.