A Water Ball In Space. Read to Know How It Sparks Idea For A Future Industry

If you still haven’t got a chance to watch the viral video of ISS astronaut playing with a floating water ball in space, you should watch it now. In the video ISS astronaut Scott Kelly changes the colour of a floating water ball (a tennis-ball sized water blob) by injecting a few drops of dye. The coloured water blob looks really beautiful. Soon Kelly slips an Alka-Seltzer tablet.

$Editorial Use Only. No stock, books, advertising or merchandising without photographer's permission Mandatory Credit: Photo by ESA/NASA / Rex Features (1869992b) European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers, Expedition 31 flight engineer, squeezes a water bubble out of his beverage container, showing his image refracted and reflected, on the International Space Station. European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers, Expedition 31 flight engineer,plays with water in space - 20 Sep 2012 When ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers was on his six-month PromISSe mission on the International Space Station he conducted over 50 scientific experiments in the world's only permanent microgravity laboratory. He used to post pictures to Twitter including this fun image of him playing with water. On board the International Space Station, Andre squeezed a water bubble out of his drinks container, showing his image refracted and reflected. On Earth the bubble would rise and pop but in this case as there is no gravity, the bubble stays put and in the middle of the water drop is an evacuated sphere filled with air. When a beam of light passes through the bubble, the direction its traveling changes, which is why Andre's reflection is upside down, this is refraction.$

The effervescent tablet then bubbles and fizzes inside the blob, meanwhile gas bubbles form inside and deform the blob when occasionally some of them manage to break the surface tension of the blob.

While watching this video, Daniel Faber, CEO of asteroid mining start-up Deep Space Industries realised the untapped value of space. He said this video could be the basic idea for a future industrial process which could take advantage of the odd properties of liquids in microgravityto keep substances separated from each other in a more controlled manner.

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For example we can stumble upon a way to use the phenomena in the video to keep toxic substances in a liquid separate from other substances. Faber also cited the example that silicon carbide used in the production of semiconductors created in microgravity has fewer imperfections as compared to the same being created in labs on earth.

Tapping the power of microgravity is especially significant for Faber’s company because Deep Space Industries hope to start mining asteroidsto supply raw materials for a new space economy that may include things like orbiting solar power stations and new communications infrastructure.

Wonder what a small coloured water blob can do when combined with science and technology.

Author:Technology Blog