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Message: <blockquote data-quote="djHiran" data-source="post: 5324262" data-attributes="member: 6429">No!  This was an assumption that Newton made and others followed, but since nobody pretends to have actually weighed the Sun or the planets it has never been checked.  Laboratory experiments have attempted to check it for small bodies, but (a) it is impossible to separate gravitational from electrostatic effects and (b) we have not been told all the facts.  The various anomalies such as variations with temperature and with the coating on the object have not reached the text books.  Perhaps even more relevant are a few chapters in Matt Edwards' book, "Pushing Gravity".  Here you will find details of probably the only experimental tests ever to have been made that investigate the possibility of gravitational shielding.  They were performed by Quirino Majorana round about 1920.  Despite his best efforts they were inconclusive and (like Dayton Miller's work) need to be repeated, the results were compatible with a degree of "gravitational absorption" that would mean that the Sun could be about three times as massive as we currently think.So, the discussion is open... Please feel free to post your opinion here.</blockquote>

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