Interesting Gravity Facts

July 26, 2010 | In: Space Facts



Gravity was discovered 3 centuries ago by a mathematician and physicist named Sir Isaac Newton.

Gravity is a force. It is the force that keeps our feet on the ground and the Earth spinning around the Sun.

The force of gravity 100 km (62 miles) above Earth is just 3% less than at the Earth’s surface.

In 1969, an American physicist, Joseph Weber, detected gravitational waves made from acceleration. Other scientists are testing his results. It may not always be possible to tell the effects of gravity from the effects of acceleration.

Gravity guides the growth of plants and other vegetation.

Astronauts grow taller while they are in space. Gravity is the force that holds all of us down on earth – without it, we’d float around the way astronauts do in space, where there is no gravity.But gravity also scrunches us a bit, because the weight of the top parts of our bodies put pressure on the middle and bottom parts.
Without gravity, astronauts get taller because the bones in their backs don’t have to support any weight, and straighten out a bit.The astronauts who lived on the Skylab space station for 84 days in 1973 and 1974 each grew about two inches taller while they were in space.


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