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You are here: Home / Science / Would a yo-yo “sleep” in zero gravity?

Would a yo-yo “sleep” in zero gravity?

July 13, 2020 by Karen Hill

On April 12, 1985, NASA decided to test just that.

It sent a yo-yo into space with the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

What they learned was that a yo-yo would indeed work with little-to-no gravity.

With a gentle push, it glided down the string and back up again. Simply dropping the yo-yo, though, didn’t work; it had to be thrown. Furthermore, they learned that without gravity, a yo-yo could not in fact “sleep.”

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Filed Under: Science

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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