Newton's Third Law would require that the strength of the gravitational force of the Earth pulling on the Moon is

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To tackle this question, we first recall what Newton's Third Law says: forces come in equal and opposite pairs acting on two interacting bodies, with the magnitudes of the two forces being exactly the same.
Option 1: 'equal to that of the Sun pulling on the Moon.' This incorrectly invokes the Sun-Moon interaction. The Sun's gravity does not form the action-reaction pair with the Earth-Moon system in this context; the Moon-Earth pair must be considered as the Newton's Third Law pair, so this statement misidentifies the relevant forces.
Option 2: 'equal to that of the Moon pulling on the Earth.' This matches the core idea of Newton's Third Law: the gravitational force Earth exerts on the Moon has the same magnitude as the gravitational force the Moon exerts on the Earth, just in the opposite direction. The distance and masses set the force magnitude, but the two forces are equal and opposite.
Option 3: 'considerably greater than the Moon's pull on the Earth.' This is incorrect because Newton's Third Law requires equality in magnitude for the Earth–Moon interaction; there is no inherent reason for one leg of the pair to be stronger than the other.
Option 4: 'stronger when the Moon is farthest from Earth.' This misstates the relationship between distance and force in this context. While the gravitational force does weaken with distance, Newton's Third Law still demands equality of the two forces at any given instant, regardless of orbital position.
Option 5: 'less than that of the Moon pulling on the Earth.' This is also incorrect for the same reason as Option 3: the action-reaction pair must have equal magnitudes, so stating it is weaker undermines the basic law.
In summary, the correct interpretation is that the Earth–Moon gravitational forces on each other are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction, per Newton's Third Law; the other options either misidentify the relevant interaction, rely on distance in a way that contradicts the equal-magnitude requirement, or state an inequality that Newton's Third Law forbids.

ASTRON 2140 AU2025 (23428) Quiz 2 - 2025 Oct 10

Newton's Third Law would require that the strength of the gravitational force of the Earth pulling on the Moon is

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