There is a point roughly 90% of the distance to the moon where net gravitational force is zero. How many times more massive than the moon is the Earth?
The gravitational force at the distance x at a point between the
moon and the earth is
where, m is the mass of the test particle and D is the distance
from the earth to the moon and x is the distance of the point at
which the test particle of mass resides. And as the earth pulls the
mass m towards itself and the moon pulls towards herself, so, there
is a relative minus sign between the two forces.
Now, for
we have
Thus, mass of the Earth is 81 times greater than the mass of the
Moon. And so, Earth is 81 times massive than the mass of the
Moon.
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