Astronomy Picture of the Day: To Fly Free in Space Feature Summary
- Type:
- Physics in Your World
- Title:
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Astronomy Picture of the Day: To Fly Free in Space
- Description:
- This is astronaut Bruce McCandless, orbiting along with the Space Shuttle in 1984 as he tests his rocket pack. When he stepped outside to begin his spacewalk, why didn't he fall back to Earth? He stayed in orbit because before and after he stepped outside, McCandless and the Shuttle had the same velocity. The force of Earth's gravity bent his path into the same orbit as the shuttle; that's because the acceleration of gravity does not depend on the mass of the object being accelerated. To learn more about McCandless' spacewalk, see Astronomy Picture of the Day: To Fly Free in Space and Footloose.
Now look at the image at the top right of Felix Baumgartner beginning his supersonic skydive. When he stepped out, his balloon had been lifting him slowly in the thin stratospheric air, so his initial velocity was quite small. Gravity then pulled him back to Earth.
To learn more about gravitational orbits, visit Satellite Motion.
- Image:
 - image credit: STS-41B, NASA; image source; larger image
- Image URL:
- https://www.compadre.org/Informal/images/features/rocket-pack_nasa-large.jpg
- Featured:
- December 1, 2012 - December 16, 2012
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