Apollo 15 operations on the Lunar surface

0:37 If you drop a feather and a hammer, will they hit the ground at the same time?

0.03kg	Feather	Light object	Left hand	Falcon feather
1.32kg	Hammer	Heavy object	Right hand	Aluminum geological hammer

0:00 Well, in my left hand, I have a feather; in my right hand, a hammer. And I guess one of the reasons we got here today was because of a gentleman named Galileo, a long time ago, who made a rather significant discovery about falling objects in gravity fields. And we thought where would be a better place to confirm his findings than on the Moon? And so we thought we’d try it here for you. The feather happens to be, appropriately, a falcon feather for our Falcon.

0:32 And I’ll drop the two of them here and, hopefully, they’ll hit the ground at the same time.

And they did.

0:37 Both were released simultaneously from the same height (1.6m) and hit the lunar surface simultaneously, as predicted by Galileo a long time ago but never tested in a vaccuum before.

But only on the moon, not on Earth due to air resistance slowing the feather’s fall.

This famous experiment on the moon proved Galileo’s theory that objects of different mass will hit the ground at the same rate if there is no atmosphere creating friction slowing down light objects.

0:37 Here is the famous footage of the Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott who dropped a hammer and feather on the moon to prove Galileo’s theory that in the absence of atmosphere, objects will fall at the same rate regardless of mass.

Fun fact: Later investigations found that the feather may have been extracted from the wing of a female gyrfalcon.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15_operations_on_the_Lunar_surface

During the Apollo 15 mission, David Scott did an experiment by dropping a hammer and a falcon feather at the same time. Both hit the ground at the same time. Why? According to the principle of relativity, without air resistance, two objects of different weight will hit the ground at the same time.

Source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories

Scott’s use of a hammer and a feather validated Galileo’s theory that when there is no air resistance, objects fall at the same rate due to gravity regardless of their mass.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15
Simple: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15

“During the final minutes of the third extravehicular activity, a short demonstration experiment was conducted. A heavy object (a 1.32-kg aluminum geological hammer) and a light object (a 0.03-kg falcon feather) were released simultaneously from approximately the same height (approximately 1.6 m) and were allowed to fall to the surface. Within the accuracy of the simultaneous release, the objects were observed to undergo the same acceleration and strike the lunar surface simultaneously, which was a result predicted by well-established theory, but a result nonetheless reassuring considering both the number of viewers that witnessed the experiment and the fact that the homeward journey was based critically on the validity of the particular theory being tested.” – Joe Allen, NASA SP-289, Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report, Summary of Scientific Results, p. 2-11

Source: https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/331/the-apollo-15-hammer-feather-drop/