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EXERCISE 27
The Moon has a mass of 7.36 * 10^22 kg. It is 3.84 * 10^8 m away from the center of the Earth. Earth's radius is 6,378,000 meters. (a) At what rate does the Moon gravitationally accelerate the part of Earth's surface closest to it? (For this problem, keep careful track of many decimal places; the details are important in this instance.) (b) At what rate does the Moon gravitationally accelerate the part of Earth's surface farthest away from it? (c) What is the difference between these two rates of acceleration? How does that net difference - what we might loosely call the "tidal differential" - compare to the gravitational acceleration of Earth at its surface, 10 meters per second squared? |