Gravitational force is the pull between two things because they have mass.
Imagine you and your friend are on opposite ends of a bouncy castle. You both jump onto it at the same time, you feel like it's pulling you toward each other, right? That’s kind of what happens with gravitational force. The bigger something is (like Earth), the stronger its pull is.
Like a Bigger Magnet
Think about magnets, when they’re close, they pull each other. Now imagine that instead of being magnetic, you and your friend are just really heavy. The more mass you have, the more you "magnetize" space around you. So Earth pulls you down because it has a lot of mass.
Even though you're small, you still pull Earth, but Earth is so big, it barely notices!
A Game of Tug
If you’re on one side of the bouncy castle and your friend is on the other, you both pull it toward you. That’s like how the Moon pulls the Earth a little bit, not enough to make the whole planet move, but just enough to cause tides.
So gravitational force is like a game of tug: bigger things have a stronger pull, and everything in space plays along!
Examples
- A ball falls to the ground because Earth pulls it.
- You feel lighter on Mars than on Earth.
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See also
- What is Newton’s law of universal gravitation?
- What is 9.8 m/s²?
- Why does gravity make things fall?
- What is mass?
- What is force?