• Question: What would happen if the earths gravitational pull increased by 5 newton's ?

    Asked by Luke to Daniel, Hannah, Maggie, Ry, Scott on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Maggie Lieu

      Maggie Lieu answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Not a lot. 9.8 Newtons is about 1g of force and often we can experience 4g forces on many of the rollercoasters at theme parks.

    • Photo: Ry Cutter

      Ry Cutter answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      It wouldn’t be a huge problem for day to day life, but precision experiments would have to be rebuilt. So that would be really annoying.
      Great question,

      Ryan

    • Photo: Scott Melville

      Scott Melville answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      So Earth’s current gravity only pulls as hard as the mass of the thing it’s pulling. So you and I get pulled a little bit: but buildings are pulled much more, and ants are pulled much less.
      So the answer to your question really depends on what you mean by ‘increased’. If we increase the gravity by 5N per kg (e.g. by adding some extra mass in the Earth’s core), then I’m totally on board with Maggie and Ryan – we’d be uncomfortable, but wouldn’t be too bothered. But if you mean that we’re adding an extra 5N of force to EVERYTHING (regardless of its mass), it would actually be pretty serious. We’d barely feel an extra 5N, but all of the little guys out there (like ants and insects) would be mercilessly crushed 😛

    • Photo: Hannah Middleton

      Hannah Middleton answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      I’m not sure, but I think it would depend on the mass of the object you are thinking of – like Scott says, things with smaller masses would be affected much more than larger mass objects!

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