Projectile motion is a form of motion experienced by an object or particle (a projectile) that is projected near the Earth's surface and moves along a curved path under the action of gravity only (in particular, the effects of air resistance are passive and assumed to be negligible).
This curved path was shown by Galileo to be a parabola, but may also be a line in the special case when it is thrown directly upwards. The study of such motions is called ballistics, and such a trajectory is a ballistic trajectory.
The only force of mathematical significance that is actively exerted on the object is gravity, which acts downward, thus imparting to the object a downward acceleration towards the Earth’s center of mass. Because of the object's inertia, no external force is needed to maintain the horizontal velocity component of the object's motion.