How Does Acceleration Due to Gravity - GCSE Physics Work?

Acceleration due to gravity is how fast something falls when you drop it.

Imagine you're holding a ball in your hand and let go, poof, it starts falling down to the ground because of gravity. That’s what happens on Earth, and it's why everything drops when you let it go.

Gravity is like an invisible rope that pulls things toward the center of the Earth. You feel it every day, when you jump up, gravity brings you back down. It also keeps your feet on the ground so you don’t float off into space!

When you drop something, it doesn't just fall slowly, it speeds up as it goes! This is called acceleration due to gravity. On Earth, that number is about 9.8 m/s². That means every second the object falls, it’s going faster by 9.8 meters per second.

Think of it like this: if you drop a ball from your hand and it falls for one whole second, it would be moving at almost 10 meters per second, that's like running really fast!