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Local Gravity for different Places and Planets

Info by Collin McNeil | Last update on 2023-02-26 | Created on 2018-03-03

In this article I would like to contrast the location factor, the local mass difference, the gravitational acceleration or gravity acceleration for different locations.

In the next two sections you will find a table for the earth and a table for planets from our solar system. The values ​​are to be understood as m/s².

Earth

The mean local gravity factor on earth is 9,81 m/s² or 9,807 m/s² - depending on whether you want to calculate with two or three decimal places. At the equator, the factor is smaller, at the poles it is larger. If you want to know why this is the case, here is an answer.

PlaceLocal Gravity
Earth surface mean value9.807 (9.81)
Earth surface at the equator9.787
Earth surface at the poles9.832
10 km above the surface9.72
100 km above the surface9.52
1000 km above the surface7.33
2000 km above the surface5.70

The further we rise from the surface of the earth, the smaller the gravity. While we can find in a height of 10 km above the earth's surface almost comparable conditions to the equator on the surface of the earth with a local gravity of 9.72 m/s², 1000 km above the earth's surface the gravity is only 7.33 m/s² and 2000 km above the surface it is only 5.70 m/s².

Planets

There are even bigger differences when looking at our neighboring planets (or dwarf planets in the case of Pluto). The following table shows the location factors of some celestial bodies in ascending order.

PlanetLocal Gravity
Pluto0.61
Moon1.62
Mercury3.70
Mars3.71
Venus8.87
Uranus9.01
Saturn11.19
Neptune11.28
Jupiter24.79
Sun274.10

As we can see, the difference between Pluto and our Sun is huge. On Pluto, we would be 16 times lighter than on Earth, on the Sun 28 times heavier than on Earth (assuming we would make it to the scale at all with the local temperature there).

A 75 kg weighing person would therefore have to carry only 4.7 kg on Pluto, but on the sun a proud 2.1 tonnes. On the moon, the difference would not be so great, here the gravity is only six times less than on Earth.

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