In a zero-gravity environment with an atmosphere similar to Earth’s, how long would it take air friction to stop an arrow?
In comparison to a regular physics problem, this scenario is backward. We normally consider gravity and neglect air resistance.
Unsurprisingly, air resistance would slow down an arrow, stopping it—after flying really far.
Assuming you fire an arrow at 85m/s. That’s about twice as fast as a major league fastball, but a little under the 100m/s speed of arrows from good compound bows.T
The arrow would slow down relatively quickly. Air resistance is directly proportional to the speed squared, which means the arrow would experience a lot of drag when going fast.
After 10 seconds of flight, the arrow would have traveled about 0.4 km, and the speed would have dropped from 85m/s to 25m/s. This is close to how fast a regular person can throw an arrow.
At that speed, the arrow would be way less harmful.
By my calculations the arrow should fly no more than 10 meters.
Daily Physics 