Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have received a range of items to test in microgravity, but the most bizarre may be a package of green slime.
Nickelodeon, a children’s television network, launched its iconic green slime to the craft last year and recently shared footage of the crew releasing it inside.
The astronauts played ping pong with the goo, spun it in the air, ejected it from a syringe and even slimed each other.
The experiment, titled ‘Non-Newtonian Fluids in Microgravity,’ set out to examine the properties of slime in microgravity while promoting science to a younger audience.
The goo was sent in a packaged labeled ‘Slime Bag’ aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft in July 2019.
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Nickelodeon, a children’s television network, launched its iconic green slime to the craft last year and recently shared footage of the crew releasing it inside the craft. The crew played ping pong with the goo, spun it in the air, ejected it from a syringe and even slimed each other
The iconic green slime made a name for itself in the early 1990s on the Nickelodeon show ‘You can’t do this at home’ – but astronauts clearly show you can do it in space.
European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca and Parmitano and NASA’s Christina Koch released the slime about the ship to see how the concoction would change in microgravity.
‘Today, we’re going to be working some really crazy science with slime in space,’ said Parmitano during the clip that was shot in 2019.
‘We want to see and study how this strange concoction behaves in orbit.’
European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano (left) and NASA’s Christina Koch (right) released the slime about the ship to see how the concoction would change in microgravity
The experiment, titled ‘Non-Newtonian Fluids in Microgravity,’ set out to examine the properties of slime in microgravity while performing fun stunts with the goo
The experiment, titled ‘Non-Newtonian Fluids in Microgravity,’ set out to examine the properties of slime in microgravity while performing fun stunts with the goo.
A non-Newtonian fluid is ‘a material in which its viscosity (resistance to flow) changes based on the amount of shear stress applied to it—for example, through squeezing or stirring,’ the ISS US National Laboratory explained in a statement.
One of the experiments included the astronauts playing a game of ping pong with the slime, which stuck to the paddles when tossed back and forth.
The team also blew slime bubbles, sprayed slime on each other and shot it from a large syringe.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have received a range of items to test in microgravity, but the most bizarre may be a package of green slime
One of the experiments included the astronauts playing a game of ping pong with the slime, which stuck to the paddles when tossed back and forth
The team also blew slime bubbles, sprayed slime on each other and shot it from a large syringe
‘Boom!’ Koch proclaimed, as she squeezed the slime out of its bag through a straw to float free. ‘Houston, we have a slime blob.’ ‘Ahh! I’m slimed!’ she yelled
‘Boom!’ Koch proclaimed, as she squeezed the slime out of its bag through a straw to float free. ‘Houston, we have a slime blob.’
‘Ahh! I’m slimed!’ she yelled while laughing, as Parmitano sprayed the gooey green substance on her arm and across her shirt.
Playing with slime in space is way more fun than I thought it would be — and way more unpredictable,’ said Koch.
‘Just like all of the other science we do, you cannot replicate these experiments on the Earth, you need zero gravity to see some of this behavior.’
The filming was completed in 2019 and both Koch and Parmitano have since returned to Earth.
Both landed on the ground February 5 in Kazakhstan at 4:12 am ET.
Koch came home with a record of completing the first all-female spacewalk, which she performed with her colleague and longtime friend Jessica Meir in January.