The Saturday Morning Science series is a collection of videos that Astronaut Don Pettit recorded in his free time during the Expedition 6 mission on the International Space Station, a world-class orbiting laboratory. Originally, these were just his movies of his own impromptu research on materials at his disposal, but later the series, but they were later coined the Saturday Morning Science series by the NASA Education Office.
Guided by his own curiosity, Pettit conducted experiments in the kitchen of the ISS that illustrates researchers’ most basic desire---to find out what happens. With a doctorate in chemical engineering and a penchant to describe every utensil and action he takes, he illustrates his vast knowledge by providing analogies to describe the observations.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 11:25PM Don Pettit puts different food coloring drops into a thin film of water and pushes designs into the coloring with a small syringe. The coloring slowly diffuses into the solution.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 10:40PM Astronaut Don Pettit uses tracer particles within a thin film of water to demonstrate Marangoni convection. The two types of fluids, water and the tracer particles, have different surface tension forces that cause flow when a soldering iron or a flashlight is placed near the substrate.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 10:24PM OK, so not really, but this next demonstration will remind you of them (for those old enough to remember). Astronaut Don Pettit inflates a plastic bag with coffee/tea grounds and sugar inside and watches the effect after shaking the bag. There are several forces including static charges that play on the behavior of these particles, some form conglomerates and others travel singularly.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 10:14PM In this Saturday Morning Science video, Don puts a few drops of food coloring into a thin film of water to demonstrate the viscous flow and rotational flow by stirring the solution.
Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 2:27AM This Saturday Morning Science clip shows the chemical reaction of an effervescent tablet inserted into a sphere of water. The kinetic energy of the chemical reaction forces smaller bubbles to collace with larger bubbles creating even larger bubbles. Using rotational motion, a teflon canula is able to remove all the air bubbles from the sphere of water. The same experiment is also done using a thin film of water that changes the volume significantly.
