Sultan Al Neyadi during a live video chat abroad International Space Station.

Mahmoud Mohsen, Staff Reporter

The Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi, through a video clip he shared via his Twitter account from the International Space Station (ISS), answered the question, which he left for smart people to answer, saying, “Only intelligent people can tell us the reason why this happening.”

It was about the reason for the change in the movement of an object in space.

At the beginning, Al Neyadi praised the followers’ interaction with the question, stressing that many of them answered it correctly.

The correct answer is the intermediate axis theorem, he said.

The theorem says that the rotation of a rigid body around its minor and major principal axes is stable, while rotation around its intermediate principal axis is unstable.

He also explained that any rigid body that rotates, whether in space or on Earth, has several axes, except for the circle, which rotates in equal directions.

Simply, he explained that rectangular bodies can rotate vertically and horizontally in regular direction, while the rotation around the intermediate principal axis usually causes an imbalance in movement, as it is located between the minor and major principal axes, and therefore the result is a change in movement. Once with the major axis, and another with the minor axis, he added.