Sorry to Disappoint You, Your Broom Will Stand Up on Its Own Today Too
This may crush a few souls, but I have to put it out there. Your broom will stand up on its own today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. And on Arbor Day.
It has nothing to do with the Vernal Equinox or the tilt of the earth. Your broom simply stands up on its own because it has a low center of gravity. This was a hoax that got started on social media and took off -- you know like things tend to do on social media.
But it was fun to see people stop arguing about politics for a minute, right? And it was cool to see that some people cleaned up (a small area) of their homes in order to post a picture of their brooms.
Did you fall for it? I did, at least initially. I stood the broom up in the middle of the kitchen floor and asked the family if they knew anything about the "phenomenon" that was taking place yesterday. My son -- a science major at the University of Michigan Flint -- looked at me like I had three heads.
We pulled up NASA's Twitter account -- the oft-cited source of the information and found nothing.
There's a little more to the science (or lack thereof) of this whole thing in the video below.