Space and Physics
PUBLISHED
Curious about the behavior of water surface tension in microgravity, three astronauts aboard the International Space Station decided to stick a GoPro camera inside a floating ball of water. They also filmed the event using a 3D camera.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.The men—Steve Swanson, Reid Wiseman, and Alexander Gerst—captured the videos sometime during summer 2014 as part of Expedition 40.
In space, liquids naturally take on a spherical shape because they're in free fall. Therefore, gravity doesn't affect them like on Earth and rather it's surface tension that shapes them. Hydrogen bonding between water molecules naturally pulls them together, resulting in a spherical configuration that minimizes surface area.
The videos captured by the astronauts can be seen in 2D and 3D below. You'll need 3D glasses to view the latter video properly though.
