Fire in Space
Image Credit:
NASA
What does fire look like in space?
In the
gravity on Earth,
heated air rises and expands, causing flames to be
teardrop shaped.
In the
microgravity of the
air-filled International Space Station
(ISS), however,
flames are spheres.
Fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and
space flames meet new
oxygen
molecules when they float by randomly from all directions --
creating the enveloping sphere.
In the
featured image taken in the
ISS's Combustion Integration Rack, a
spherical flame envelopes clusters of hot glowing
soot.
Without oxygen, say in the
vacuum of empty space,
a fire would go out immediately.
The many chemical reactions involved with
fire are complex, and
testing them in microgravity is
helping humanity not only to better understand fire -- but how to
put out fire, too.