– Why did the feather and the hammer fall at the same speed on the moon, but slower than they would fall in a vacuum on earth?

Question

If mass does not affect the speed at which they fall, then the mass of the object they are falling towards should not matter either, and yet obviously it does.

In: 0

Answer 1

They fell slower because the acceleration due to gravity is considerably smaller (about one-sixth) on the Moon than it is on Earth. This is because the Moon has considerably smaller mass than the Earth.

The way to calculate this acceleration is with this formula:

g = GM / R^2

* g is the acceleration we are trying to calculate.
* G is the gravitational constant.
* M is the mass of the massive body (in this case, the Moon)
* R is the radius of the massive body (the Moon)

As the mass (M) increases, so does the acceleration (g).