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After returning from orbit, astronauts sometimes release objects as if they will float; their brains have not forgotten gravity, but their movements need time to predict it again
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Space News From SpaceDaily.Com
After days or months in orbit, an astronaut can return to Earth and momentarily release an object as though it will remain beside them.
NASA’s history of Skylab says returning crew members sometimes tried to let things float as they had in microgravity.
Even after months in weightlessness, the astronauts’ movements still carried a strong imprint of Earth’s gravity.
The dropped object is a habit colliding with physicsNASA describes the Skylab crews occasionally forgetting that objects would not float on Earth.
The brain therefore combines several kinds of information: vision, touch, movement, the expected consequences of a slip and a lifetime of experience under one Earth gravity.