On February 10, a tweet blew up that claimed NASA said Earth’s gravitational pull caused brooms to stand up all on their own that day.

The viral tweet had everyone dropping their jaws, grabbing their brooms, and trying to make them stand up straight. More and more photos and videos of the phenomenon swept across the nation. Kids and adults felt the magic in the air with this cool new party trick.

“I didn’t think it was going to work, but I still wanted to try. It didn’t take me as long as I thought it would. It was crazy!” junior Ashley DeCosty said.

Through all the excitement and thought that a scientific phenomenon was occurring, no one thought to check the tweet’s accuracy. In reality, there was no such message from NASA, and the gravitational pull referenced, which is related to the alignment of the sun and the moon, is not supposed to happen until March 19.

“When I first did it, it was a complete accident. Shortly after, I found out it was some kind of trend. A bunch of comments I found online also said they did it by accident before they knew it was a thing, so my theory is that God changed the laws of the universe and allowed us to stand brooms up without them falling over,” junior Ben Morales said.

The reason brooms are standing on their own is not because of the alignment of the sun and moon or God changing the laws of the universe but because of simple balance. If you can arrange the bristles of a broom into a small tripod, it will stand on its own any day.

Maybe this truth ruins the fun of a possible scientific breakthrough, but nevertheless, the tweet made for a fun day full of self-standing (and falling) brooms with lots and lots of videos to laugh at.

Source:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/02/11/standing-broom-internet-craze-orig.cnn