Newton Cradle Dropped in a NASA Drop Tower

A DIME & WING teacher workshop was conducted at NASA Glenn during the summer 2009. The teachers were challenged to develop a microgravity experiment that would be dropped two days later in the 2.2 Second Drop Tower.
One team brought a "Newton Cradle" to find out what would happen when gravity effects were drastically reduced.

Before the cradle is released, the five balls are seen to be acting 'normal' because it is in 1-g.
The moment the experiment is dropped in free fall, the cradle feels as if gravity were 'turned off'. At that instant, the balls continue moving the direction they were moving when it was released. They feel no gravity to pull them down again. The balls continue swinging to the right for 2.2 seconds at which time, the experiment hits bottom. At that time, gravity returns with a vengeance.

To find out more about the student DIME and WING competitions, see this website:
http://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/DIME.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• microgravity
• DIME
• WING
• teacher
• workshop
• NASA
• student
• competition
• free
• fall
• zero
• gravity