Year 5 Science: Gravity

Gravity is the force by which a planet or other body draws objects toward its center. The force of gravity keeps all of the planets in orbit around the sun.

Gravity, or gravitation, is the attraction of all matter for all other matter. It is both the most familiar of the natural forces and the least understood. It is the force that causes objects to drop and water to run downhill. It is also the force that holds Earth, the Sun, and the stars together and keeps planets, moons, and artificial satellites in their respective orbits.

Gravity is a force of attraction that exists between objects based on their mass. First described by Isaac Newton in the seventeenth century, the law of gravity is one of the most fundamental principles of physics. While the precise details of how gravity works are still being debated today, the concept of gravity remains at the very heart of humankind's understanding of the physical universe and the laws by which it is governed.

A black hole is an area in space with an incredibly strong force called gravity. This gravity pulls in everything that gets close. Nothing, not even light, can escape from a black hole once it has been pulled in.

People commonly use the term weight to describe the heaviness of an object. Scientists, however, have a specific definition for weight; they use it to describe the effect of gravity on an object. Weight is a measure of the gravitational force with which an object is drawn to the center of a massive second object, such as Earth or the Moon.