Honey looks totally freaky when you play with it in space
An ISS astronaut shows what happens with sweet, sweet honey in microgravity.
Astronaut David Saint-Jacques plays with honey in space.
If I opened a jar of honey here on Earth and tilted it on its side, I would have a big mess to clean up. Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques tried this on the International Space Station and had a very different result.
"Strange things happen with honey when you remove gravity," Saint-Jacques wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
The astronaut unscrewed the lid on a jar and demonstrated how the honey clings from the jar to the lid and tries to curl back on itself. The tendril-like behavior makes it look like it's alive.
Astronauts on the ISS often play around with substances that behave very differently in space than they do on Earth. NASA's Jack Fischer showed us in 2017 what happens with tropical punch in microgravity. His experiment was a lot messier than Saint-Jacques'.
Scientists are interested in how different fluids react to the environment in space, knowledge NASA says can help improve designs for fuel tanks and other fluid-based systems used for space travel.
The honey, however, is likely destined to be eaten by the astronauts on board the ISS. How sweet it is.
