how does gravity in a vacuum work is there a particle force or field that pulls on the affected object how does it reach across a vacuum where there is no touching matter.

Question

.So the space station is orbiting in our planet I understand that it’s being pulled down and its current inclination of orbit at the same time to where it’s technically in constant free fall and I also understand that Newton’s first law is an object in motion will stay out motion until force is acted upon it. But when I think about gravity I can’t seem to understand how it pulls does gravity have a particle or a link to the object it’s pulling in some way?

In: Physics

Answer 1

The space station is actually moving in a straight line. That line turns out to be a loop though because gravity bends space itself such that a straight line isn’t straight. That also explains how light can get bent by gravity in spite of having no rest mass. Because the space the light travels through is also bent (hence gravitational lensing which shouldn’t exist under Newtonian gravity).

We don’t really know how it works under really small scales though from what I remember as there is no solutions for what gravity does on a quantum level.