• What are they? Visual aids to help us imagine and understand gravitational fields. They're like Google Maps, but for gravity!

• Think of them as invisible threads that show us

  • The direction in which gravitational force is acting.
  • The strength of that gravitational force.

Sad news: We can't really see them like we can for electric or magnetic fields (yes, magnets have their own cool lines!). But, if you hang a weight on a string, the string's direction will show you where the field is pointing: towards the heart of our planet. So, gravity's GPS is pointing home!

• Gravitational field lines around spherical objects, like Earth, point inwards, all aiming at the center. This is because gravity is like that one friend who just loves hugging - it's always pulling things in.

• In the universe, whether it's a point or a giant sphere, outside that sphere the gravitational lines act the same way. From far away, it's like the entire mass of the Earth or another planet is just a single point right in the middle!

Super Fun Fact: The gravitational field strength outside a uniform sphere is the same as if all of its mass was squished into a tiny point at its center!