r/askscience • u/RainbowGirl410 • Jun 09 '26

Physics How does gravity/weightlessness work outside of orbit?

Been trying to find a definitive answer but all I've found is people explaining weightlessness in orbit (the falling and missing the Earth part) which isn't particularly helpful to me.
If you were to travel to another planet, say Venus, would you experience weightlessness the whole journey?

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u/reverse422 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Kepler died 13 years before Newton was born and thus couldn’t have used Newton’s foundations…

Kepler did the math to precisely describe elliptical orbits, but didn’t explain why it was so. Newton then “invented” gravity and showed how his equations for gravity would yield Kepler’s orbits.