Gravity Well

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Gravity Well

Water filled basketball in the middle of a sheet clipped to a circular pvc pipe stand

PIRA: 1L20.10

Materials: 14 Gray PVC, 7 White PVC, 22 Sheet Clamps, Black Sheet, , Small Water Filled Basketball, Golf balls, Marbles, Softballs, Pool Balls

This demo shows orbital mechanics and is a physical representation of gravitational potential fields in space. Have an object in the center of the sheet then roll another object around the center object and you can see the orbit will be elliptical as such in space. However, this demo is not perfect as friction will cause the ball to ultimately lose energy and crash into the object, but this is a good representation of orbits in space.