I was just scrolling through another sub and the Felix Baumgartner jump came up, along with someone mentioning that the record was broken by Alan Eustace in 2014.
In the Wiki for this, it mentions he was falling at 822mph, however I thought a human’s terminal velocity was 120mph (more if say, a skydiver was diving head first)… So how does this work? Is it as a result of the reduced air resistance and force of gravity increased therefore increasing the terminal velocity?
Sorry, by no means a physicist!
In: Physics
Ex skydiver here. Assuming a constant weight, it’s all about how many molecules of air are being allowed to hit your body.
I can fall anywhere between 110mph to 268mph, according to my digital altimeter. It depends mainly on how much air I allow to hit my body whether I speed up or slow down in freefall.
The higher you go, the fewer molecules of air exist, so even if you let them all hit you, their combined mass will not slow you down. The lower you get, the more air is there and it gets harder to go fast.
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