The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently released a stunning video of an experiment performed by the Artemis II crew while aboard the Orion capsule in space.
The experiment explains what happens to a drop of water if it is released into a nearly weightless space environment.
The crew aboard the lunar mission found time to play with a drop of water and launched it into the air to see how it behaves in the weightlessness of space.
The video shows the drop floating in the capsule in the shape of a perfect sphere, like a crystalline ball. The droplet was then trapped with straw and released into microgravity.
NASA said: “During the Artemis II mission, astronauts had fun playing in the weightlessness of space. The mission was Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s first space flight, so his crewmates taught him a lot about the physics of water in space.”
If a drop of water is dropped on Earth, it flattens out on the surface due to the gravitational force; However, in space the phenomenon is different because the molecules on the surface are attracted equally in all directions, turning it into a sphere.
Space enthusiasts seemed delighted by the video, with one saying: “It can’t be all serious in space; you have to have a little fun too.” Another chimed in: “It felt like pure magic.”
