Q.A 400 kg satellite is in a circular orbit of radius $2R_E$ about the Earth. How much energy is required to transfer it to a circular orbit of radius $4R_E$? What are the changes in the kinetic and potential energies?

Gravitational Potential Energy

The Intuition: Energy Stored by Height

Imagine holding a heavy book above the floor. Your arm feels tired — that's because you're working against gravity. If you let go, the book falls and gains speed. Where did that motion come from? It came from the position of the book. By lifting it, you stored energy in the Earth–book system. That stored energy is gravitational potential energy.

The higher you lift, the more energy you store. The heavier the object, the more energy you store. This is the core idea: Gravitational potential energy is the energy an object has because of its position in a gravitational field.

The Precise Definition

Gravitational potential energy ($U$) is the work done against gravity to bring an object from a reference point (usually the ground) to its current position.

For objects near the Earth's surface (where gravity is roughly constant), the formula is beautifully simple:

Where:

• $U$ = gravitational potential energy (joules, J)
• $m$ = mass of the object (kg)
• $g$ = acceleration due to gravity (≈ 9.8 m/s² on Earth)
• $h$ = height above the reference point (m)

Why "Potential"?

The word "potential" means "stored and ready to be used." The book at height $h$ has the potential to do work — it can smash a table, compress a spring, or generate sound when it hits the ground. That energy was put in when you lifted it.

The Reference Point is Arbitrary

Here's a crucial point: Only changes in gravitational potential energy matter. You can choose any height as $h = 0$. In most problems, we take the ground as zero, but you could take the floor, the tabletop, or even the ceiling.

If you lift a 2 kg book from the floor ($h = 0$) to a shelf ($h = 2$ m), the change in potential energy is:

If you instead took the shelf as $h = 0$, the book on the floor would have negative potential energy ($-39.2$ J). The difference between the two positions is still 39.2 J — that's what matters.

The Bigger Picture: Variable Gravity

The formula $U = mgh$ works only when $g$ is constant — that is, near Earth's surface. For large distances (like a rocket leaving Earth), gravity weakens with distance. The general formula for gravitational potential energy between two masses $M$ and $m$ separated by distance $r$ is:

The negative sign means that potential energy is zero at infinite separation and becomes more negative as objects come closer. This is the true definition, and $U = mgh$ is a special case of it (derived by approximating near the surface).

Key Takeaways for Exams

1. Gravitational potential energy is always relative — you must state or imply a reference level. …