Astronauts aboard China ’s Tiangong space station have alight a standard candle inside it , to demonstrate how flame act in zero gravity .
Gui Haichao and Zhu Yangzhu lit the candle while live - streaming a speech to viewers down below . On Earth , the hot gases from the flames rise while gravity pulls cooler and denser air downwards to the bottom of the flame . In the microgravity environment of a distance place , this does n’t happen and the fire becomesspherical .
While nerveless in a manifestation , fires and space are not a great mixture . There was a real fervency on Mir back in1997 , which lasted several moment and abbreviate off access to one of the Soyuz escape vehicles dock to the space place . The crew handle to put out the attack , but the situation was pretty hairy for a time .
“ The fire was so enormous and the hummer and vapor come off this fervour situation was such that we could n’t see at arm ’s length,“European Space Agency(ESA ) astronaut Reinhold Ewald said of the incident , " and I could not at that time have imagine that we go on with the mission . "
Another problem with flames on blank space Stations of the Cross is that the lack ofgravitymakes them more unmanageable to detect .
“ As the soberness field is slim on Mars ( 0.38 g ) or on the Moon ( 0.16 g ) , irrepressibility decreases and the typical time required to detect a fire with steady equipment is consequently capital , ” Guillaume Legros of France ’s Institut de Combustion , Aérothermique , Réactivité et Environnement tell ESA .
“ bad still , in a spacecraft , there is no buoyant flow and the smoke will accordingly take after the complex breeze movement imposed by the ventilation system , leading to a retentive fire detection time by smoke sensor typically placed along the vent lines . ”
If a fire break out , astronaut on the Russian department of the International Space Station ( ISS ) have H2O - base blast extinguishers , while the US surgical incision has a carbon dioxide extinguisher .
" Of course , we have to be careful when using the fire fire extinguisher to either assure ourselves against a wall or have a 2d cosmonaut stand behind us and hold back us in place , " ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer explained in aGerman Space Agencyvideo . " The recoil from spray one of the extinguishers can be quite strong and would send me fly backwards . "
