Acceleration of free-fall
Near the surface of the Earth, any object falling freely will have an acceleration of about 9.810 metres per second squared (m/s2). Objects falling through a A substance that can flow, such as a liquid or a gas. eventually reach The maximum speed of an object, reached when the forces moving the object are balanced by its frictional forces.. At terminal velocity, the object moves at a steady speed in a constant direction because the The single force that could replace all the forces acting on an object, found by adding these together. If all the forces are balanced, the resultant force is zero. acting on it is zero. For example, a skydiver falling spread-eagled through the air reaches a maximum speed of about 53 m/s.
Three stages of falling
There are three stages as an object falls through a fluid:
- at the start, the object accelerates downwards due to the force of gravity
- as the object's speed increases, frictional forces such as A force of friction produced when an object moves through the air. or drag increase
- at terminal velocity, the weight of the object due to gravity is balanced by the frictional forces, and the resultant force is zero
The weight of an object does not change as it falls, as long as it stays whole.
A skydiver
The diagram shows what happens to the speed of a skydiver from when they leave the aircraft, to when they reach the ground after their parachute opens.
Before the parachute opens:
- Immediately on leaving the aircraft, the skydiver accelerates downwards due to the force of gravity. There is no air resistance acting in the upwards direction, and there is a resultant force acting downwards. The skydiver accelerates towards the ground.
- As the skydiver gains speed, their weight stays the same but the air resistance increases. There is still a resultant force acting downwards, but this gradually decreases.
- Eventually, the skydiver's weight is balanced by the air resistance. There is no resultant force and the skydiver reaches terminal velocity.
- When the parachute opens, the air resistance increases. The skydiver slows down until a new, lower terminal velocity is reached.
Note that the skydiver does not go upwards when the parachute opens, even though this can appear to happen when a skydiver is being filmed. The illusion happens because the person with the camera opens their parachute later on, so falls downwards past the skydiver.