Before understanding how gravity acts, one must understand the difference between weight and mass. Weight and mass are two completely different things. The mass of a body is a measure of the amount of matter it contains. If you have an object, it takes a push to get it moving, but after that, it wants to stay in motion. Mass is the measure of how much inertia acts on a certain object with mass. Weight on the other hand is completely different. It is the amount of attraction between a person and any planet …show more content…
Gravity varies with latitude. A person weighs .5% more when they are closer to the North and South poles, compared to standing by the equator. The earth is not completely rounded and is actually more of a “squashed” sphere; therefore, this causes the radiuses of the equator and the poles to be slightly different. The gravitational acceleration is 9.78 m/s2 at the equator and 9.83 m/s2 at the north and south poles (Masters, 2002). These different gravitational accelerations is also known as centripetal acceleration, and it has a minute change on different locations on the