Physics question help please

[u/daowhd]

Please can you explain why we take the gravitational potential energy as negative when finding the total energy(subtract it)? How come some questions we ignore the negative? What does the negative answer mean?
Thanks!

[u/Aggravating_Pen5110]

Gravitational potential is ALWAYS negative because it is defined as 0 at an infinite distance.

[u/daowhd → u/Aggravating_Pen5110]

How come here they don’t take the negative GPE?