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I was just pondering something before work started.

Could a satellite convert the gravitational pull it experiences as it gets closer to a moon or asteroid into electrical energy?

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Could an asteroid be positioned into a degrading orbit and have its continuous loss of potential gravitational energy converted into electrical energy?

I know hydro electric dams do this with water falling onto a turbine causing it to turn, but I'd be curious if there was an alternative way?

For the asteroid in a degrading orbit. Could the loss of gravitational energy cause it to tumble and then it would be possible to convert the tumble into electrical energy somehow (seems like an easier problem)?

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  • $\begingroup$ An asteroid in free fall would convert most of the energy into kinetic energy because of its speed, then some energy would be converted to heat because of the chemical interactions with the molecules in the atmosphere. You can definitely use gravity to power engines but you would have the obstacle of impact eventually $\endgroup$
    – twisted manifold
    Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 14:39
  • $\begingroup$ Falling things can be used to generate electricity, controlling the fall helps. $\endgroup$
    – user234190
    Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 14:50

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Nothing but kinetic energy would be increased in satellite's loss of gravitational potential, as long as it is outside an atmosphere, and has no collisions. Everything in the satellite is affected the same by gravity. The satellite would still be in freefall. In a hydroelectric generator on Earth, essentially, the water falls through a turbine, pushing the blades. If the turbine was falling the same as the the water, no force would be applied to the blades.

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Yes there is:- Based on the same principle as in the motor used in dams. Faraday showed how a moving magnet can generate current in a winded copper loop. Faraday's law of induction

Well then consider a falling magnet and a loop like such, gravity pulls magnet towards earth while current is generated in the coil opposing the motion of magnet(current carrying wire creates magnetic field). In this system the condition is that the falling object must be magnetised

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  • $\begingroup$ And how would the coil not be moved the same as the magnet by gravity in a satellite? $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Howard
    Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 16:39
  • $\begingroup$ One can always fix it, just like we fix turbines so that it doesn't flow away with water. Only in a controlled system can we convert one kind of energy into another useful one. $\endgroup$
    – Mritunjay Sharma
    Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 16:46
  • $\begingroup$ Turbines are attached to the Earth and have 0 gravitational potential, how would you do that with a coil in space? $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Howard
    Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 17:01
  • $\begingroup$ Coil in space! Well i can have my coils attached to earth and let the body fall and speed up(which will continue speeding up in case of vacuum and reach terminal velocity otherwise) so that i can get max energy out of it. $\endgroup$
    – Mritunjay Sharma
    Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 17:20
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One way one can extract energy from gravitational fields would be through tidal forces. This is called tidal heating. Io, one of the many satellites of Jupiter is heated through this effect. Were you to put a "moon like" object into an elliptical orbit which deforms the object in such a way, you could extract energy from the gravitational field as heat. I don't really know how you would do this in practise, but in principle this is a mechanism which could be used.

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