Four hundred years ago, Galileo claimed that a cannon bullet and a feather would reach the soil simultaneously if there was no air reistance. Unfortunately, there were no resources to test this four centuries ago, and Galileo was unable to demonstrate his hypothesis.
This experiment took place in NASA's space power facility in Ohio. It's the world's biggest vacumn chamber. It was built in the 1960's and is used to test spacecraft conditions in outer space, although originally it was commissioned for nuclear electric propulsion studies. In order to do this, it is able to pump out 30 tonnes of air!
Galileo's hypothesis was simple. He said that if you take a heavy object and a light one and drop them at the same time, the lightest would fall slower because of air resistance.
This experiment was performed using a feather and a bowling ball. You can see that they both reach the ground at exactly the same time. In order to see the true nature of gravity, you must remove the air. This experiment suggests a new idea of the concept of gravity.
The video proves Galileo's claim! What a brilliant mind!
