I learnt that ISS is always in a free fall due to Earths gravity. Since ISS orbits the Earth, does this mean Earth is in a free fall due to the sun because Earth orbits the Sun?
In: 8
Drop a baseball from your hand and it’s in free fall. Now drop it again but this time give it a little push away from you. The ball is now in free fall but it now moved a bit away from you. Repeat this again but now push it harder away from you. The ball will still be in free fall but it will be even farther away from you when it hits the floor.
Now, if the earth was perfectly flat the ball will always hit the floor no matter how hard you trow it away from you (i.e. the vertical movement is independent from the horizontal). But earth is not flat so the floor ‘curves down’ so as you throw it harder away from you it will take a bit longer to reach the ground each time.
There will eventually be a push strong enough that the ball will always be falling since it matches exactly the curvature of the earth. In other words, the ball will be forever in ‘free fall’. You may also know this as ‘orbiting’.
Latest Answers