If you drop an apple on the moon...?

I have a question about pretty basic physics(I believe). If you drop, say, an apple, from a height of 10m on the moon, would it accelerate faster or slower than if it were on Earth? It could be slower because there is less gravity on the moon, but the lack of air resistance might cause the apple to accelerate faster. Which one of these effects is stronger? Does the apple accelerate faster or slower than if it was on Earth? I would much appreciate a concrete answer to this question.If you drop an apple on the moon...?
You have stated, “The acceleration could be slower because there is less gravity on the moon, but the lack of air resistance might cause the apple to accelerate faster”





You have raised a basic question.





Let us imagine there is no air both in earth and moon.





The Earth pulls the apple with an acceleration of ~ 10m/s^2. (No air resistance)





The moon pulls the apple with an acceleration of ~1.7 m/s^2. (No air resistance)





You are asking a basic question that if air reduces the acceleration due to earth by an amount 9m/s^2, then the earth will have only 1m/s^2, whereas moon will have 1.7 m/s^2. Therefore apple will move faster in moon. -- Good question!





The air resistance is proportional to the mass of air displaced by the object and on the speed of the object.





Consider the helium filled balloon, it floats on air. At certain height its speed is zero.





The same balloon, if it can with stand the internal pressure, will fall down in moon with an acceleration of 1.7m/s^2 from whatever height it is dropped whereas it is in rest on Earth.





In earth we can drop an apple from such a height that it attains its terminal velocity.


i.e., the net acceleration is made zero.





In moon, the same apple can be dropped from a height such that it exceeds the terminal velocity of the apple on earth and the apple is always accelerated in moon.If you drop an apple on the moon...?
An apple's is has too much mass to be affected by the air resistance in the earths atmosphere.





As to which of the two effects is stronger. Once again it would depend on the aerodynamics and weight of the object.





You should have asked the following:


If you drop a feather from a height of about 100 meters would it accelerate faster or slower than if it where on earth.





This would lead to a slightly more interesting question.
Even if you take air resistance into consideration the apple will encounter less downward acceleration on the moon than on the earth.
It will accelerate slower because the acceleration due to gravity on the moon is only about 2 m s^-2 and air resistance is quite negligible in this circumstances
slower but i bet it looks the same and youd have to measure it.
Earth is faster. Air resitance isn't important in your example but may be impotant if you were dropping say a piece of paper from a larger height. The apple has little surface area so is not affected.
slower
It will fall a lot slower on the moon, because of the lesser gravitational attraction.
The acceleration due to gravity of earth is 9.8 m/s





The acceleration due to gravity of moon is 1.6m/s





The effect of air resistance is negligible for an apple,so on moon apple accelerate slower than earth
the apple will travel slower as the gravitational field is 6 times less on moon but the atmosphere is not six times thinner.... Also the lesser gravitational pull will offer lesser force to pull apple on moon's surface and thus causing lesser resistance offered by air while its pulling down as resistance means force acting in opposite direction to the main force.. as force is less thus the resistance will also be less even if the atmosphere is thinner...





actually u urself answered ur ques.. while asking ur ques ;)
acccln on earth is more than that on moon, in case of n apple.





'coz air resistance 'ld play a major role it it 'ld b some cotton /a paper etc. even in that case u can QUANTIFY and get d value of accln(i.e a mathemetical Xpression).... so no ambiguity