Japanese Astronaut: Boomerang Actually Comes Back In Space
Remember some time back in January I mentioned that Japanese astronaut Takao Doi was going up into space to throw a boomerang inside the International Space Station?
Well, the 53 year old just conducted the boomerang test on Tuesday and the results are really interesting. The boomerang actually came back!
Doi tested the boomerang in an American experimental module on the ISS, using a paper boomerang made by world boomerang-throwing champion Yasuhiro Togai. It was not immediately clear how the boomerang actually flew, but a photograph suggested that Doi had thrown it vertically, and it had returned to his hand.
Source: Mainichi JP
Haha its very interesting that the boomerang actually can return back in space. This is sure going to spark off a craze for boomerangs.
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whoa last time i said it was dumb but now i think its amazing! ….ahem |-o-| TIE fighter heehee
I was at a conference and many of the ideas on boomerangs were smashed there… Apparently, it is the inertia creating the returning effect not any lift or upthrust caused by the revolution or something to that effect… I just assumed the gravitational forces that far into space wouldnt be effective enough… Seems I was wrong…
@ Dee: maybe they will use this finding to develop new space technologies.
@ Deranged: I think alot of skeptics including me guessed wrong.
Gravitational forces in theory stretch forever into space and just get smaller and smaller. In reality thanks to intervening massive bodies (massive being bodies of mass and not “huge”) that also have gravitational attraction, the gravitational forces thereby cancel one another out at vast distances. However, this is within the Earth’s gravitational reach, so certainly, there are enough gravitational forces, albeit very small compared to the one we experience at the surface daily, to cause some Newtonian physics to hold true.
Though, I must admit, even if I had known earlier I would have said it would most likely not return. It would be far better if they could show a clip of how he did it.