Welcome to Squiz Kids Science Shorts, the show where we take your big, curly questions and unpack the science stories everyone's talking about.
Break them down into snack-sized, science-powered answers.
We sort the fact from the fluff, keep it fun, keep it fast.
And whether it's happening in your body, your backyard or the big wide universe.
We're here to explain the science behind the headlines.
A falling cat can twist itself mid-air and land on its feet, even when it starts upside down.
But there's a rule in physics that says you can't spin around in midair without pushing on, something which makes today's question a bit of a head scratcher.
How do cats land on their feet when they fall?
So here's the thing.
Cats aren't breaking the laws of motion, not even a little bit.
They're just incredibly good at using them.
When a cat starts to fall, it uses something called the air-righting reflex, a built-in trick that lets it figure out which way is up and fix it in a split second.
Now for a long time, scientists were puzzled because, according to Newton's laws of motion, if nothing is pushing on you, you shouldn't be able to just spin around in midair.
So how is the cat turning?
Well, here's where it gets clever.
Instead of trying to spin its whole body at once, the cat twists in two parts.
First, it pulls in its front legs and turns the front half of its body.
Then it tucks and rotates the back half.
It's a bit like wringing out a towel, but one section at a time, and brand new research from scientists in japan has uncovered exactly how this works.
A cat's spine isn't the same all the way along.
The upper and middle parts of the backbone, near the front, are super flexible.
It can twist really easily, but then the lower back, closer to the tail, is much stiffer and acts like a stabilizer.
So what happens is this the cat twists its front half first, because it's lighter and more flexible, then the back half follows, using that stiffness to stay controlled and balanced.
It's not one big spin, it's a carefully timed two-step twist, and that's how the cat turns itself around without breaking a single rule of physics.
Now here's something interesting.
Height actually matters.
If a cat falls from too low it might not have enough time to finish the twist, but from a higher height it has time to rotate, stretch out and get ready for landing.
In fact, once cats fall from high enough, they reach something called terminal velocity, where they stop speeding up and they relax their bodies, spreading out, a bit like a furry parachute.
Their legs then act like shock absorbers when they land.
That said, and this is important, Cats are not invincible, so this is definitely a watch don't try situation.
No experiments at home, not with you, not with your cat.
And last thing, kittens don't get it straight away.
They actually learn the air writing reflex over the first few weeks of their lives, practicing their tiny twists until they can land like pros.
So next time you see a cat tumble off a couch, twist in midair and stick the landing, remember it's not luck and it's not magic.
It's physics, flexibility and a body built like a tiny furry acrobat.
And maybe the real question isn't how cats follow the laws of motion.
It's why they make it look so ridiculously easy.
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On next week's Squiz Kids Science Show.
