The planet's gravitational pull is a function of its mass. The newtonian gravitational constant helps us figure it out, but since that wasn't your question, I won't elaborate. In short, no, a planet's gravity cannot be directly distorted unless a good chunk of its mass was relocated to a different part of the globe. Some things can negate a planet's gravity without changing it, such as the moon's pull on the earth. The earths pull does not change because of the moon's pull, however the two do cancel eachother out. The sun and the earth do that too, approximately 1 million miles between the earth and the sun. These are called LaGrange points, and our SOHO satellite is pointed at the sun and situated in point L1. as the earth moves around the sun, the SOHO is neither in orbit around the sun nor the earth, but it does move with us as we go.


If earth were to lose it's gravity or it distort in some way, the only thing that would possibly happen is we would lose our moon. We are too far from other planets to affect or be affected by other planet's gravitational pull...I know this is answered a month later, but hey...I just got back :)

~Chris

• Is that what ws asked - weatherlawyer - January 10, 2003 - 19:43 UTC