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acceleration of free fall

A Dictionary of Astronomy | 1997 | 483 words | Copyright

acceleration of free fall (symbol g) The acceleration experienced by an object falling freely in a gravitational field, also known as the acceleration due to gravity. Its mean value at the Earth's surface is 9.807 m/s2; this varies slightly with latitude, because the Earth is not perfectly spherical. On any body the acceleration due to gravity can be found from the formula g = GM/R2, where M is the mass of the body, R is its radius, and G is the universal gravitational constant.

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