Gravitational Potential - Numerical Values

Numerical Values

The absolute value of gravitational potential at a number of locations with regards to the gravitation from the Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way is given in the following table; i.e. an object at Earth's surface would need 60 MJ/kg to "leave" Earth's gravity field, another 900 MJ/kg to also leave the Sun's gravity field and more than 130 GJ/kg to leave the gravity field of the Milky Way. The potential is half the square of the escape velocity.

Location W.r.t. Earth W.r.t. Sun W.r.t. Milky Way
Earth's surface 60 MJ/kg 900 MJ/kg ≥ 130 GJ/kg
LEO 57 MJ/kg 900 MJ/kg ≥ 130 GJ/kg
Voyager 1 (17,000 million km from Earth) 23 J/kg 8 MJ/kg ≥ 130 GJ/kg
0.1 light-year from Earth 0.4 J/kg 140 kJ/kg ≥ 130 GJ/kg

Compare the gravity at these locations.

Read more about this topic:  Gravitational Potential

Famous quotes containing the words numerical and/or values:

    The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    With all of its bad influences, T.V. is not to be feared.... It can be a fairly safe laboratory for confronting, seeing through, and thus being immunized against unhealthy values so as to be “in the world but not of it.”
    Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)