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This gif of some kind of handle being spun in zero gravity has been doing the rounds:

GREETINGS HUMAN

Why is it flipping back and forth? It seems odd that it flips, then seems to rotate around one axis in a reasonably stable manner before suddenly flipping about entirely.

Qmechanic
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Tom Medley
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    By "doing the rounds," OP means on imgur and reddit. Related on Physics.SE: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/67957/, http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/128471/, http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/131270 – Kyle Kanos Jul 19 '15 at 22:35
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    The rotation is not stable, if you let the hadle spin around this axis the slightest rotation around any other axis grows exponentially until it flips. You can observe this by throwing something like your smart phone into the air, there will be one axis that is unstable. Try it! – john Jul 19 '15 at 22:51

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