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Astronauts play with the microgravity effects of water in space

Posted at 6:44 AM, Oct 16, 2015
and last updated 2015-10-16 08:05:04-04

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION – Most people know that water isn’t quite the same in space–in fact, liquid water has only been discovered on Earth.

Scientists on the International Space Station recently recorded a high-definition video of the manipulation of a drop of water, and it’s extraordinary.

First, astronaut Scott Kelly colored the water drop blue with basic food coloring, and then added some color to make it green. Then, he added an effervescent tablet into the water, and you can see the bubbling effect right in front of your eyes.

The purpose, according to NASA, is to experiment with knew 4k cameras, which record at four times the resolution of a regular high-definition camera. The cameras can help the scientists see new details on things like space crafts docking and undocking from the space station.

“This is a huge leap in camera technology for spaceflight,” said Rodney Grubbs, the program manager for NASA’s imagery experts program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in July when the cameras were first sent to the ISS. “These cameras have large sensors capable of very high resolution imaging at high frame rates. It is like having a high speed 35MM motion picture film camera, but it is compact, can use lenses we already have up there, and it is digital. No film to return to Earth.”

The cameras are the same ones used to record movies like “The Hobbit.”

Here’s another video maniuplating water from earlier this summer: