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Fascinating' Scientific Spectacle Occurs When Bowling Ball, Feather Are Dropped in Room With Zero Air

Fascinating' Scientific Spectacle Occurs When Bowling Ball, Feather Are Dropped in Room With Zero Air

"That is just brilliant."

A video recently posted online shows what happens when a bowling ball and feather are dropped in a room that has been vacuumed entirely free of air.

Naturally, under normal conditions, a bowling ball crashes to the ground at a much faster speed than a group of feathers — as demonstrated by the BBC's Brian Cox, who visited NASA's Space Power Facility in Ohio.

"Now in this case, the feathers fell to the ground at a slower rate than the bowling ball, because of air resistance," Cox said, after dropping the objects to the ground simultaneously.

But, when air resistance is removed from the equation, something entirely different happens: the objects fall toward the Earth at the exact same speed.

The scientific spectacle was captured on video inside NASA's Ohio facility, which houses the world's largest vacuum chamber.

[sharequote align="right"]"That is just brilliant."[/sharequote]

"That is just brilliant," one of the observers said after watching the phenomenon.

"Holy mackerel," echoed another.

"Fascinating," commented an individual who viewed the footage on YouTube, where the video has amassed more than half-a-million views.

(H/T: Gizmodo)

Follow Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) on Twitter

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