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 water droplet if it is released into a near-weightless space environment.
The lunar mission crew found time to play with a water droplet and released it into the air to see how it behaves in the weightlessness of space.
The video shows the droplet floating in the capsule in the shape of a perfect sphere, like a crystal ball. The droplet was then captured via straw and released into microgravity.
NASA said: “During the Artemis II mission, the astronauts had a great time 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 water droplet falls on Earth, it flattens on the surface due to gravitational force; however, in space the phenomenon is different because the molecules on the surface attract each other equally in all directions, turning it into a sphere.
Space enthusiasts seemed thrilled by the video, with one saying: “It can’t just be serious space; you also have to have a little fun. Another added: “It was like pure magic.”
