Gravitational field

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A gravitational field is a model used within physics to explain how gravity exists in the universe. In its original concept, gravity was a force between point masses. Following Newton, Laplace attempted to model gravity as some kind of radiation field or fluid, and since the 19th century explanations for gravity have usually been sought in terms of a field model, rather than a point attraction.

In a field model, rather than two particles attracting each other, the particles distort spacetime via their mass, and this distortion is what is perceived subjectively as a "force". In fact there is no force in such a model, rather matter is simply responding to the curvature of spacetime itself.

For more information about Gravitational field, read the full article at Wikipedia.
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News tagged with gravitational field

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Chinese scientists create metamaterial black hole

Chinese scientists create metamaterial black hole

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Oct 16, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (54) | comments 20

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two physicists in China have used metamaterials to create the first artificial electromagnetic black hole. The scientists, Qiang Cheng and Tie Jun Cui from the Southeast University in Nanjing, ...


German scientists produce first Bose-Einstein condensate with calcium atoms

German scientists produce first Bose-Einstein condensate with calcium atoms

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 22, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 0

Physicists at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany) have succeeded in producing a Bose-Einstein condensate from the alkaline earth element calcium. The use of alkaline earth atoms creates new ...


Goddard-led GEMS mission to explore the polarized universe

GEMS mission to explore the polarized universe

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Aug 04, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 1

An exciting new astrophysics mission led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide a revolutionary window into the universe. Named the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer ...


Jupiter, solar system's 'big bully,' takes a punch

Jupiter, solar system's 'big bully,' takes a punch

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jul 30, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have been turning the world's most powerful telescopes toward Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, ever since Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley discovered a new ...


Crashing comets not likely the cause of Earth's mass extinctions

Crashing comets not likely the cause of Earth's mass extinctions: new research

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jul 30, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (18) | comments 14

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have debated how many mass extinction events in Earth's history were triggered by a space body crashing into the planet's surface. Most agree that an asteroid collision 65 million ...


New class of black holes discovered

New class of black holes discovered

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 01, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (22) | comments 15

A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.


XMM-Newton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge

XMM-Newton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 27, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy.


LIDAR system offers peerless precision in remote measurements

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created May 24, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 1

By combining the best of two different distance measurement approaches with a super-accurate technology called an optical frequency comb, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have built a laser ...


QUIET team to deploy new gravity-wave probe in June

QUIET team to deploy new gravity-wave probe in June

Physics / General Physics

created May 15, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (8) | comments 7

A tiny fraction of a second following the big bang, the universe allegedly experienced the most inflationary period it has ever known.


Subterranean oceans on Saturn's moon Titan

Subterranean oceans on Saturn's moon Titan

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 06, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 7

(PhysOrg.com) -- Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have a subterranean ocean of hydrocarbons and some topsy-turvy topography in which the summits of its mountains lie lower than its average surface elevation, ...


GOCE

GOCE launch: Mapping the Earth’s gravity as never before

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 09, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA is about to launch the most sophisticated of Earth Observation satellites to investigate the Earth’s gravitational field with unprecedented resolution and accuracy.


Black hole

A Newtonian system that mimics the baldness of rotating black holes

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 23, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (18) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- The rotating black hole has been described as one of nature's most perfect objects. As described by the Kerr solution of Einstein's gravitational field equations, its spacetime geometry is ...