Tag: free-fall

Free Fall

Objects fall down because of gravity. Flat-Earthers deny gravity & wrongly claim they fall down because of density. For a demonstration, we can ask any flat-Earthers the following simple physics problem:

“A rigid object is released at the height h above the ground, what is the object’s velocity right before it hits the ground?”

Flat-Earthers will not be able to solve this free-fall problem without using the gravitational acceleration g=9.8 m/s². Some will call it by a different name, showing that it is just a “branding” problem. Practically all the time, they will not involve density to solve it, if they can solve it at all.

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How Satellites Can Orbit and Stay Up There

Earth’s gravity pulls things toward Earth. Satellites can stay up there because they are orbiting. They are moving at the right speed and right direction to counter the pull of gravity.

Flat-Earthers claim that satellites should fall down if gravity pulls toward Earth. In reality, we do not just launch satellites to space. We also give them the correct speed & direction, so they neither fall toward Earth nor keep going farther away.

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Weightlessness, Free Fall, and Microgravity

In orbit, objects are weightless because both the objects and the spacecraft have the same speed and direction, and both are affected by the same gravitational influence. We use the spacecraft as the frame of reference. Because the objects are not in motion relative to the spacecraft, they appear to float.

In Earth orbit, the objects are still affected by Earth’s gravity, but yet they float. Flat-Earthers use it to disprove spaceflight. In reality, the objects float because we are using the spacecraft as the frame of reference, which is also moving by the same amount and is affected by the same gravity as the objects themselves.

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