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Welcome to our Physics lesson on Gravitational Potential, this is the fourth lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Gravitational Potential Energy. Kepler Laws, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
The quantity
is known as "gravitational potential". It represents the attracting ability of a celestial body. Since G and M are constants, this attracting ability depends only on the distance from the planet. For example, gravitational potential of Earth on its surface is
As you can see, the unit of gravitational potential is [m2 / s2], i.e. that of square of the velocity. Indeed, gravitational potential represents the square of the first cosmic velocity (orbital velocity). The sign minus is because of the relationship between gravitational potential ϕ and gravitational potential energy GPE (or U). It is
where m is mass of the object at the position R inside the gravitational field which is affected by the gravitational potential ϕ.
You have reached the end of Physics lesson 8.2.4 Gravitational Potential. There are 4 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Gravitational Potential Energy. Kepler Laws, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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