külgetõmbejõudude

Külgetõmbejõudude, often translated as gravitational forces, refers to the fundamental attractive force that exists between any two objects with mass. This force is responsible for keeping planets in orbit around stars, holding galaxies together, and causing objects to fall to the ground when dropped.

The strength of gravitational force is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the two objects and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. This means that more massive objects exert a stronger gravitational pull, and the force weakens rapidly as the distance between them increases.

Historically, Sir Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation provided the first comprehensive mathematical description of this phenomenon. His work explained the motion of celestial bodies and terrestrial objects with a single, unifying principle. Later, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity offered a more profound understanding, describing gravity not as a force in the traditional sense, but as a curvature of spacetime caused by the presence of mass and energy.

While gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, it is by far the weakest. However, its cumulative effect over vast distances and with immense masses makes it the dominant force on cosmological scales. Understanding külgetõmbejõudude is crucial in fields ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to satellite engineering and everyday physics.