Final answer:
An object will experience more air resistance when it falls if it has a greater surface area because air resistance acts in the direction opposite the motion and exerts more force on objects with larger surface areas.
Step-by-step explanation:
An object will experience more air resistance when it falls if it has greater surface area.
This because air resistance, which acts in the direction opposite to the motion of the object, exerts more force on objects with more surface area. The resistance to the motion through the air increases with the object's surface area, making an object with a larger surface area fall slower than an object with a smaller surface area if all other factors are the same.
In an ideal situation described in physics, without air resistance or friction, objects are in free-fall and would experience constant acceleration due to gravity, regardless of mass, at approximately 9.80 m/s² on Earth. In the real world, air resistance plays a considerable role. If you consider a tennis ball and a baseball dropped at the same time from the same height, the tennis ball, which is lighter, will often reach the ground after the baseball, largely due to the difference in air resistance they experience.