If you drop a 20 pound weight and a 10 pound weight on the Moon ?

Question

Suppose you drop a 20 pound weight and a 10 pound weight What will land first??

Answer 1

With no resistance (eg; "in a vacuum") or on the moon, the 20 pound weight and the 10 pound weight would fall at the same rate and land at the same time.

Answer 2

Everyone already gave you the high school answer, which is that they'll land at the same time. Are you ready for the real answer? The moon pulls them both the same amount, but the 20 pound weight pulls on the moon twice as hard. That means the moon moves toward it a little more than the moon moves toward the 10 pound weight. Since the moon is so massive, this movement is tiny and ignored in everyone else's answer.

Answer 3

It's been awhile since I've taken physics but if I remember correctly, they'll both land at the same time. The gravity of the moon is 1/6th of that of the earth so common sense tells me they'll drop like they're here on the earth but just 1/6th of the speed. A good experiment to test this with is to take a quarter and a penny, drop them from the same height at the same time and watch them fall. The quarter is easily twice the weight of a penny yet they both hit the ground at the same time. However, if you take something with a large surface area, for instance, a feather or a piece of paper...it'll drop much slower than something with much less surface area because it has to displace much more air as it falls. Anyways, I'm not physics expert but I hope that helps!

Answer 4

There is no air on the moon, so there is no resistance, which is why they would land at the same time. And as pointed out above so would a weight and feather.
On Earth, where we have air, the feather, by its design, runs into resistance and falls much slower than the weight.
Now, two different weights 10/20 that have the same resistance would fall at the same rate on Earth. If the heavier one had more Resistance, it would fall slower than the lighter weight.

Answer 5

I'll give you the "real world" answer.
Assuming I'm a properly trained astronaut, the 20# weight will definitely hit first.
Why?
I am keeping myself balanced while I'm on the moon. Which is why I'm holding the heavier weight lower and closer to my body than the lighter weight. Assuming I drop them at the same time, the weight closer to the Moon's surface (which happens to be the heavier one in my example) will hit first.

Answer 6

They land at the same time,

Here's some video of Apollo 15 moon walk, Commander David Scott demonstrating with a hammer and a feather:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_15_feather_drop.html
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Apollo_15_feather_and_hammer_drop.ogg

Answer 7

It depends on which one you let go of first. There is no atmosphere on the moon so everything will accelerate the same. The force they land with will be different, but the rate they fall, if from equal hieght, will be the same.

Answer 8

They will land at the Same time..
As a Matter of fact a hammer and a feather will land at the same time . Nasa may have that vidio on there web site.

Answer 9

The force is equal so they would land together.

The force is equal here on earth too and they would land together here too!

Weight has nothing to do with it!

Answer 10

20 weight will land first