Why is Earth’s gravity strong enough to keep the Moon in orbit but not strong enough to prevent astronauts in space from floating?

Question

Why is Earth’s gravity strong enough to keep the Moon in orbit but not strong enough to prevent astronauts in space from floating?

In: 0

Answer 1

those astronauts in ISS are in its respective orbit to Earth just like the moon does, objects in orbit are basically in a perpetual free-fall motion without ever “falling” to the ground meaning the relative change of distance to the ground, what makes them “float” is not because there is not enough gravity, in fact the gravitational pull there is almost as strong as people feel here on earth, but because they are in a free fall motion they can’t feel it, the weightlessness in space is nothing special you recreate the exact same scenario by jumping midair.