Daily Archives: November 4, 2016

Dancing water droplets in an air bubble inside a water bubble in space

Smarter Every Day 160: The WALKING WATER Mystery (in SPACE and SLOW MOTION!). (YouTube, 12min)

Destin Sandlin explains why you often see water droplets dance or bounce on the surface of water instead of coalescence occurs.

This video features astronaut Don Pettit, who did a cool experiment in space: He attached a big water bubble to a speaker, then inserted an air bubble into it. When he played cello music (by Yo-Yo Ma) through the speaker, little water droplets would detach from the water and bounce around inside the air bubble. You can see it in the above video starting right here.