Central Force Motion and Gravitation — UPSC Physics Optional CSE 1997 Paper I

The tides in oceans on Earth are produced by gravitational pull of the Sun and the Moon. The pull due to Sun is much greater than the pull due to Moon. Explain, why tides due to Sun are only about 0.4 times as high as that due to Moon. The mass of the Sun is 2 \times 10^7 times the mass of the Moon and the distance between Sun and Earth is 400 times the distance between Moon and Earth. The radius of the Earth is 6.4 \times 10^6\text{ m}.