KDKA Ray Petelin's Peeps Experiment

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- So, why does a Peep expand when you suck the air out of a jar?

The thing about air is that it likes to fill empty spaces, and you create an empty space with no air, what we call a vacuum, when the air is removed from the jar.

(Photo Credit: KDKA)

Since air is trapped inside marshmallows, or Peeps, during their production, these air pockets in the Peep expand, or push air outward, as they try to fill the vacuum created when the air is pulled out of the jar. When you let air back in the jar, the Peeps deflate, since the air in the jar is pushing in toward the Peep from the outside just as hard as the air inside the Peep is pushing outward.

With these same principles, you can inflate or deflate a balloon or regular marshmallows in a vacuum, too.

So, this experiment can be conducted outside of Easter, too, as long as you can create a vacuum and have something with air pockets.

SCIENCE!!!

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