eli5 Does gravity act the same for large objects as it does for small objects. So if I were to shrink planet Earth and the moon to say half the size and the distance between them too then would they continue orbiting. Would this also apply if they somehow became much larger?

Question

eli5 Does gravity act the same for large objects as it does for small objects. So if I were to shrink planet Earth and the moon to say half the size and the distance between them too then would they continue orbiting. Would this also apply if they somehow became much larger?

In: 9

Answer 1

There’s actually a cool demo of this in “Universe Sandbox”–it has an example scene of some teacups orbiting a teapot. Works exactly the same as the Moon orbiting the Earth only on a much, much smaller scale.