Fire behaves very differently in microgravity — and this ISS experiment shows it beautifully. 🔵 With no “up” in 0g, hot gases don’t rise, so the flame becomes a perfect sphere. Combustion completes more cleanly, giving the flame its blue color. When you see sudden orange patches, that’s soot forming — a brief moment of incomplete burning, similar to flames on Earth. As the droplet burns, tiny asymmetries push it gently through the air until the fuel is gone and the flame silently disappears. |

For over two decades, the International Space Station has enabled thousands of microgravity studies in low-Earth orbit. Many of these experiments have helped us better prepare for deep space exploration, including the Artemis I mission. By combining the findings we can get in lunar orbit and results from science conducted aboard Earth’s orbiting laboratory, humanity is getting closer to Mars than ever before. Learn more at www.nasa.gov/iss-science. | International Space Station