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Apollo 15 experiment

Definition

The Apollo 15 experiment was conducted during NASA's Apollo 15 mission in 1971. Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin performed a demonstration on the Moon's surface where they dropped a feather and a hammer simultaneously, proving that objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass in a vacuum environment.

Analogy

Imagine you are in a classroom with your classmates. Your teacher drops two different textbooks from the same height at once, and they both hit the ground at exactly the same time. Just like this demonstration, astronauts on Apollo 15 showed that objects fall at equal rates even if they have different masses.

Related terms

Vacuum Environment: This term refers to an area devoid of matter, such as air or any other gas particles.

Mass vs Weight: Mass refers to how much matter an object contains, while weight measures how strongly gravity pulls on that mass.

Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa Experiment: This term refers to the legendary experiment conducted by Galileo Galilei, where he dropped objects of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that they fall at the same rate.