Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: “The question is, if you get a cloth dripping wet without gravity, what’s gonna happen?” Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield posed this question and set about to demonstrate the experiment onboard the International Space Station.
This simple science experiment was the winning entry in a contest held by the Canadian Space Agency in 2012, asking students to design their own experiments that astronauts could perform only using items already available on the space station.
Two 10th grade students, Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner from Lockview High School in Fall River, Nova Scotia, submitted the entry `Ring it out` to find out the effects of a microgravity environment on water being wrung out of a wet washcloth.
Their hypothesis that water would not fall downwards but remain around the washcloth was proven correct.
“The space station is an orbiting laboratory where we work on unique experiments that may eventually improve life on Earth," Chris Hadfield said later in an address to the winners and their classmates.
He further added: "I was about your age when I decided I wanted to become an astronaut. I hope that you remember today and continue to be curious about science and space. You are the space explorers of the future and the sky is no longer the limit”.
Commander Chris Hadfield went aboard the ISS on December 19, 2012, for a five-month stay as a part of Expedition 35.
