How does mass curve spacetime?

Spacetime is like a trampoline, when you put something heavy on it, it bends.

Imagine you have a big, stretchy trampoline. If you stand on it, it dips down around your feet. That’s what happens with mass in space: it makes spacetime curve.

Think of spacetime as the trampoline, not just for time, but also for space. When something massive, like Earth or a star, is there, it pushes down on spacetime and creates a sort of “dent.”

Now imagine you roll a ball across that trampoline. It doesn’t go straight, it follows the curve. That’s how gravity works: things move along the curves in spacetime instead of being pulled by some invisible hand.

If Earth were a heavy kid on the trampoline, and you’re a smaller kid rolling a ball, you’d see the ball take a curved path, just like how the moon orbits Earth because it’s following the curve in spacetime made by Earth’s mass. Spacetime is like a trampoline, when you put something heavy on it, it bends.

Imagine you have a big, stretchy trampoline. If you stand on it, it dips down around your feet. That’s what happens with mass in space: it makes spacetime curve.

Think of spacetime as the trampoline, not just for time, but also for space. When something massive, like Earth or a star, is there, it pushes down on spacetime and creates a sort of “dent.”

Now imagine you roll a ball across that trampoline. It doesn’t go straight, it follows the curve. That’s how gravity works: things move along the curves in spacetime instead of being pulled by some invisible hand.

If Earth were a heavy kid on the trampoline, and you’re a smaller kid rolling a ball, you’d see the ball take a curved path, just like how the moon orbits Earth because it’s following the curve in spacetime made by Earth’s mass.