Description: The gravitational constant is one of the most important constants of the Universe. It was first invoked by Isaac Newton. It is part of Newton's law of gravitational force, that shows that all particles with a mass attract every other particle (that also has a mass) with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the squared distance between the objects. The proportionality constant is the gravitational constant. The value of the gravitational constant has been measured through experiments to be 6.67 × 10^-11 cubic meters per kilogram per seconds squared (m³ kg^-1 s^-2).

Related Terms:

• Gravity
• Mass

Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher

The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".