B. determine the mass of the sun c. the sun is about 1000x farther from the earth than the moon, but it exerts a force on the earth that is 100x greater than the force that the moon exerts on the earth. explain how this is possible. !

B.

Explanation:

The gravitational force between the Earth and the Sun is given by:

where

is the gravitational constamt

M is the mass of the Sun

is the mass of the Earth

is the distance between Earth and Sun

Since we know the magnitude of the gravitational force between Earth and Sun, (from the table given), we can re-arrange the formula and find the mass of the Sun, M:

C. Because the mass of the Sun is much much greater than the mass of the Moon

Explanation:

We already know the gravitational force between Earth and Sun (. By applying the same formula as before, we can calculate the gravitational force between Earth and Moon:

where

is the gravitational constamt

is the mass of the Earth

is the mass of the Moon

is the distance between Earth and Moon

Substituting into the formula, we find

And we see that this is smaller than the force exerted by the Sun.

grav potential energy