Free fall facts for kids
Free fall is what happens when an object is let to fall on its own without propulsion or resistance. Someone who is standing is not in free fall, but someone jumping from an airplane is, until air resistance builds up, ending in terminal velocity. An artillery shell is in free fall from the time it is fired until it hits something. Even the time when it is going up is free fall. Spacecraft are in free fall when their engine is not on and they are not sitting somewhere, which means most of the time. In most mathematical calculations the acceleration due to gravity (g) is 9.81 Newton (unit) per kilogram.
Images for kids
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Free fall of an apple
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Measured fall time of a small steel sphere falling from various heights. The data is in good agreement with the predicted fall time of \sqrt{2h/g}, where h is the height and g is the free-fall acceleration due to gravity.
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Acceleration of a small meteoroid when entering the Earth's atmosphere at different initial velocities
See also
In Spanish: Caída libre para niños
