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Two bodies of equal size and mass meet in space.

My question is: will they attract each other equally or will their attraction cancel each other out?.

Also: how long does it take for the two bodies to actually make contact with each other? - hours, days or maybe years?

bobie
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Francis
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    Can you elaborate the part "cancel each other out"? One big difference between Coulomb's electrostatics and Newton's gravity is that, there is no 'negative' mass. I cannot see what is cancelling what... – negligible_singularity Aug 10 '14 at 12:14
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    In addition to what neglegible_singularity says, there's not enough information to answer the second part - and if there were, it would be a simple calculation, which we do not do here. – ACuriousMind Aug 10 '14 at 12:17
  • Regarding the time it takes, see: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/14700/the-time-that-2-masses-will-collide-due-to-newtonian-gravity?rq=1 – alemi Aug 12 '14 at 15:42

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they will attract each other equally because there is no (known) thing that can cancel gravity. If they ever touch each other can't be told, because it depends on different things like the angle.

Citron
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