The Gravitational potential reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Gravitational potential

In physics, gravitational potential is the measure of potential energy an object possesses due to its position in a gravitational field. It is

(GMm)/r²

where G is the universal gravitational constant, M and m are the masses of two objects and r is the distance between the centers of the two objects.

If the structure of an object is spherically symmetrical, e.g. the Earth, then the potential is the same as that of a point object having the same mass.

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