Gravitation is the force that pulls objects with mass toward each other. It's why apples fall from trees, why you stay firmly on the ground instead of floating away, and why the Moon orbits Earth instead of drifting off into space.

Every object with mass creates a gravitational pull, though you usually only notice it with very large objects like planets and stars. Earth's gravitation pulls everything toward its center, which we experience as weight. The more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational pull: Jupiter's gravitation is much stronger than Earth's, while the Moon's is weaker.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation in the 1600s, realizing that the same force pulling objects to the ground also keeps planets orbiting the Sun. Later, Albert Einstein showed that gravitation actually works by bending space and time, like how a bowling ball creates a dip when placed on a trampoline.

Scientists often use gravity and gravitation interchangeably, though gravitation tends to emphasize the force itself rather than its effects. Without gravitation, the universe would be a very different place: no planets, no stars holding together, and certainly no one standing on solid ground wondering why things fall down instead of up.