Death Star Physics

[mithrand1r]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Funny, I always assumed the next would be Jupiter because I once read that Jupiter's gravitational field works as a giant vacuumcleaner and draws many of the asteroids away that otherwise would have made Earth look like the moon.

Fortunately we are not near that vacuum cleaner. That would really suck.

A big reason (for Venus Having a stronger effect on the Earth than Jupiter) is that Jupiter is much further from the Earth than Venus.

If you double the distance between two objects, the affect of gravity on each other is reduce to (1/4 or 25%) of what it was before.

The closest that Jupiter can be to the earth is about 391 million miles (Dist. from Sun in Millions of Miles: 484-93)
The closest that Venus can be to the earth is about 26 million miles (Dist. from Sun in Millions of Miles: 93-67)

391/26= about 15

That means (If I understand the idea about gravity correctly ) if the gravity of Venus and Jupiter were equal, the effect of Jupiter's gravity on the Earth would be about 240-250 times weaker than Venus' gravity on the Earth, due to distance alone.

Since Jupiter's gravity (effect on the Earth) is only about 1/11th of Venus' it gives one an idea of how much stronger Jupiter's gravity is than Venus' (or the Earth's for that matter since Venus and Earth are similar in size and density.)