14 DAY TRIAL // Astronauts living aboard the International Space Station get to carry out all sorts of experiments, and some are surprisingly entertaining.
For instance, a video released by US space agency NASA just yesterday shows astronauts creating floating blobs and then coloring them in blue, red or green.
Creating floating droplets in space is not as complicated as you'd think. All one has to do is pour some water out of a bottle. With no gravity to weigh it down, the liquid forms a sphere that begins to slowly move about.
Then, to color it, just inject some dye into it. For extra fun, astronauts sometimes dissolve effervescent tablets in the levitating blobs. It's not hardcore science, but it's still pretty darn amusing. Check out the video below to see how it works.
As for why space explorers sometimes play around with floating water spheres, NASA explains this latest experiment was carried out to test a new high-tech camera and evaluate its performances for use in actual scientific investigations.
“Once again, astronauts on the International Space Station dissolved an effervescent tablet in a floating ball of water, and captured images using a camera capable of recording four times the resolution of normal high-definition cameras.”
“The cameras are being evaluated for capturing science data and vehicle operations by engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama,” the agency explains in the video's description.
NASA expects that, once astronauts are done testing them aboard the International Space Station, the cameras will help advance research by delivering higher resolution images and higher frame rate videos than the cameras now used by scientists.
