posted on Jul, 17 2004 @ 05:33 PM
The Earth's gravity is about 6 times stronger than the Moon's gravity. If the Moon were placed anywhere on this planet, the Earth's gravity would
overcome the Moon's gravity.
Gravity pulls your mass towards a specific location, usually of greatest density. In the Earth's case, this is probably the center of the planet.
On the Moon, the same effect would happen. You'd be pulled toward the center of the Moon. However, if you did fall off the side of a mountain it
would probably fall too slowly to kill you, unless the fall was so far that you had time to accelerate to terminal velocity. My guess is that it
would take about a 30-story fall before you were going fast enough to be killed on impact.
Calculation:
32 ft/(s^2) acceleration rate
120 mi/hr terminal velocity
120 mi/hr * 5280 ft/mi * hr/3600 s = 176 ft/s
32 ft/(s^2) * 1/6 = 5 1/3 or 5.333 ft/(s^2) on the Moon
velocity = acceleration * time
Integrate with respect to time:
displacement = acceration * (time^2)/2
176 ft/s = 5.333 ft/(s^2) * time
time = 33 sec fall until terminal velocity is reached
displacement = 5.333 ft/(s^2) * (33^2)/2 .....(can you find the missing unit)
displacement = 2904 ft
So assuming you were standing still on the mountain and fell, in a 33 second freefall, you'd fall 2904 ft and die. That is a long drop. If you use
a traditional story-measurement of 10 feet, you'd have to fall off a 290.4 story building on Mars to die from the fall (on average).
Ok, so my original guess of 30 stories was a bit off. I think you can get the point that the Moon's gravity is nothing in comparison to the Earth's
gravity. If you really want to know more, just do a bit of research. Most books don't lie.
[edit on 17-7-2004 by Protector]