Abstract. This paper presents a kinematic framework for celestial mechanics that determines the dynamics, masses, gravity and angular momentum of celestial bodies without invoking Newton's gravitational constant G. Three core physical postulates are advanced. First, space is not empty but is filled by an electrodynamic plenum, a viscous and compressible quantum foam of density ρ0 that mediates all gravitational and inertial phenomena. The nature of this plenum is fundamentally electrostatic: its density ρ0 is numerically identical to the permittivity of free space ε0, so the medium that carries gravitation and the medium that carries the electric field are one and the same, and the governing phenomenon is therefore electrodynamic rather than purely mechanical. Second, mass is bipartite: every body possesses an inert nucleonic mass Mqm (responsible for resistance to motion) and an interactive cohesive mass Meff (responsible for coupling to the plenum); the two are logically distinct quantities whose interaction is what is conventionally measured as gravity and inertia. Third, the dynamical observable that characterises every vortex in the plenum is the Plenum Influence Parameter Φ = v2r, a kinematic quantity directly extractable from orbital data without recourse to gravitational mass. Within this framework, gravity is the adhesive inward pressure gradient of the surrounding plenum and inertia is the cohesive resistance of the body's bipartite mass to acceleration through the same medium.
Satinder Singh Malik (Sun,) studied this question.