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As they crossed to the dark side of the Moon and set a new record for the greatest distance ever traveled by humans, NASA astronauts also found moments to have fun in the conditions of zero gravity.
A video released by NASA shows the Artemis II mission crew experimenting with a drop of water inside the Orion capsule. In appearance, the water forms a perfect sphere as it moves freely in the cabin.
Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, for whom this was his first spaceflight, is seen observing through a water sphere, which flips his image upside down. He then "catches" the water drop with a straw and releases it back into microgravity.
“During the Artemis II mission, astronauts had a fun time playing with water in the zero gravity of space,” NASA wrote alongside the video. “Artemis II was the first spaceflight for Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, so his crewmates taught him a lot about the physics of water in space.”
On Earth, water that is not contained in a container spreads out into a puddle due to gravity. In space, however, it collects into a perfect sphere, as the molecules on the surface attract each other equally in all directions, without the force of gravity to flatten it.
Scientists explain that a sphere is the shape that has the smallest possible surface area for a given volume, so in microgravity conditions, surface tension collects water into the shape of a ball.
Similar experiments with water have been conducted by astronauts on the International Space Station. In one, astronauts squeezed a wet piece of cloth to show how water moves along the surface and “sticks” to their hand.
The Artemis II crew has been back on Earth for about a month, after a 10-day mission during which they traveled 406,771 kilometers from our planet.
Their mission around the Moon and back to Earth broke the previous record set by Apollo 13.
During the flyby, the astronauts also named two new craters on the lunar surface, including one called Carroll, in memory of the late wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman.
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