• Question: How does air resistance keep things up for longer, when gravity is pulling stuff towards the core of the earth?

    Asked by fret532gage25 on 20 Jan 2026.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 20 Jan 2026:

      Essentially you have two forces here working in opposition… gravity is downward and air resistance (sort of like friction) is upward. The net direction of motion is determined by whichever is bigger!

    • Photo: Jonathan Mound

      Jonathan Mound answered on 20 Jan 2026:

      The acceleration an object experiences depends on the sum of all forces acting on it. Gravity acts downward on the falling object. Air resistance acts upward on the falling object. So the total force might still be downward, but it will be less than if there was only gravity. Since the total downward force is less, the downward acceleration is less, and it will take longer to fall.

      Air resistance happens because the object is constantly colliding with air molecules as it falls. Each of those molecules might be much smaller than the object, but each collision will still slow down the object by a small amount, and there are a lot of air molecules being bumped into.

    • Photo: Kalina Dimitrova

      Kalina Dimitrova answered on 20 Jan 2026:

      Gravity is like an invisible pull that makes everything fall down toward the Earth. It’s always pulling things straight down.

      Air resistance is like the air gently pushing back. When something falls, it has to move through air, and the air gets in the way. Kind of like when you stick your hand out of a moving car and feel the air pushing on it.

      So while gravity is pulling the object down, air resistance is pushing upward against it. This doesn’t stop gravity, but it slows the object down. Because it’s falling more slowly, it stays in the air for a longer time.

      That’s why a feather floats down slowly, but a rock drops quickly. The feather has lots of air pushing against it, while the rock doesn’t.

Comments

  • Photo: martinpike

    martinpike commented on :

    The classic experiment was on the moon, look on YouTube for; Hammer vs Feather – Physics on the Moon. The moon has hardly any atmosphere, so no air resistance and so all objects fall at the same rate (but slower than on Earth, as only 1/6th of the gravity). Air resistance is always there, but we only really notice it for lightweight objects or fast objects.