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Question
multiple choice question
when you jump into the air, you push off the ground which is to say you exert a force on the earth. why doesnt the earth move?
the mass of the earth is so enormous that the acceleration it experiences is minuscule.
the earth does move, its just that you dont notice it because you move more.
you arent actually pushing on the earth but rather the earth is pushing you and thats why you move.
Newton's second law ($F=ma$) tells us acceleration $a=\frac{F}{m}$. When you jump, you exert a force $F$ on Earth equal to the force Earth exerts on you (Newton's third law). Earth's mass $m$ is extremely large, so its acceleration is so tiny it's undetectable to humans. The first option correctly explains this, while the second misstates the observability scale, and the third violates Newton's third law.
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A. The mass of the Earth is so enormous that the acceleration it experiences is minuscule.