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Article: Gravitation
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Science and Religion
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Gravitation
Gravitation is a universal attractive force exerted by any two physical bodies on each other, even though they may be separated by a large distance. Gravitation is responsible for making objects fall to the surface of the Earth (gravitational attraction of the object by the Earth), for the nearly circular motions of the planets around the sun (gravitational attraction of the planets by the sun), for the structure of stars and planets (gravitational attraction balanced by pressure forces of constituent particles towards each other), and for the structure of star clusters and galaxies (hundreds of millions of stars would fly apart from each other if not held together by ...