Question: Do objects move faster or slower as you go higher up in the atmosphere?

Joanna Barstow answered on 19 Nov 2019: last edited 21 Nov 2019 10:01 am

To answer this I need to be a bit more specific about how the object is moving. Let’s say the object is falling directly towards the surface, and it has reached terminal velocity. Terminal velocity is the point where the downward force due to gravity is exactly balanced by the drag force being exerted by the atmosphere.

In this case, an object higher up would be falling faster, because the drag force would be smaller in higher regions where the atmosphere is less dense, so it would have to be falling faster for the drag to balance gravity.