Answer to Question #44324 in Physics for Ashika Mohan

Question

Why clouds and birds are not attracted towards Earth by its gravitational force?

Answer 1

Gravitation,or gravity, is a natural phenomenon by which all physical bodies attract each other. Therefore all objects including clouds and birds are attracted towards Earth, but for birds and clouds there are other forces, which makes possible not falling down. For example, for birds it is a lift force which is produced by the action of air flow on the wing, which is an airfoil. The same is for clouds. They are consist of a lot of small water drops and ice crystals. The ratio between surface area and mass of small drops is much larger than for large drops, so they have a good windage and easily lifted by atmospheric upstreams.