SPACE — Taikonaut (the name for Chinese astronauts) of China’s Shenzhou 16 mission carried out amazing experiments in space. The experiment involved an open fire on the country’s Tiangong space station.
Taikonauts Gui Haichao and Zhu Yangzhu light candles during a live broadcast from Tiangong station on September 21, 2023. They wanted to show how fire burns in microgravity.
Surprisingly, the flames appeared almost spherical, not the teardrop shape we know on Earth. A burning candle on Earth produces a flame formed through convection driven by buoyancy, that is, hot air rises and cold air falls.
However, the combustion convection currents are weak in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit. This means that in space, fire can spread in all directions, producing a spherical flame.
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The live broadcast event was part of the fourth session of the ‘Tiangong classroom’ program. The taikonauts interacted with students in five classrooms across China.
They demonstrated a number of microgravity phenomena. As in previous classes, the taikonauts pointed out that many physical processes behave differently in space, compared to on Earth.
But the experiment in which Gui struck a match to light a candle is likely to surprise astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). The international station has strict regulations regarding open flames and flammable materials.
Strict fire safety measures on the ISS were a response to a major fire on Russia’s Mir space station in 1997. Combustion in microgravity has been the subject of numerous experiments on the ISS, but using specially designed instruments, so the fire remains isolated and controlled.
Also Read: Russia Sends Mission to Rescue Cosmonauts Trapped on Space Station
Tiangong also has a Combustion Experiment Rack (CER) for serious research in this field. Source: Space.com
You can watch the demonstration in the 13th minute of the video below:
2023-09-29 18:58:00
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