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Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is used to approximately model gravitational forces close to Earth. I'm curious as to if there is a weaker-gravity limit to the law's applicability, such as in a void in the Universe. Assuming voids have less of a gravitational wave background, cosmic microwave background, or a lower matter density, does NLUG still do well in weaker gravitation, or is there another model or equation for gravitational forces for the smallest distances in our Universe's weakest gravities?

William Solomon
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    Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is used to approximately model gravitational forces close to Earth. It works great for the Earth-Sun attraction, and the Sun isn’t close to Earth. – Ghoster Mar 22 '24 at 21:27
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    Given what we know about General Relativity, it makes sense to say that Newton's universal law of gravitation is the expression for low level gravity. – Albertus Magnus Mar 22 '24 at 22:14
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    Newtonian gravity fails to be accurate when gravity is too strong, not when it is too weak. – Ghoster Mar 23 '24 at 00:14
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    Its an interesting question... I'm wondering how one would go about proving it. One would have to observe the effects of a very weak gravity for a very long period of time. And we'd have to do it on something many many lightyears away (millions?) – Cort Ammon Mar 23 '24 at 01:20
  • Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation works pretty well to approximately model gravitational forces in the Milky Way galaxy too (if you stay away from that pesky black hole in the middle). – Lee Mosher Mar 27 '24 at 20:56

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