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Like everything else, food colouring way more amazing in space

(Photo: NASA Johnson)

When astronauts decide to have a little bit of fun while carrying out the awesome task of exploring space, we all benefit. Why? Because goofing around with everyday objects in space is profoundly more interesting than doing it here on earth.

Take food colouring. Not exactly thrilling, right? But when astronauts on the International Space Station decided to dye some water with regular old food colouring and film it with their fancy new high definition camera, the results were gasp-worthy.

In the video, published by NASA on Oct. 9, we see a ball of clear water, floating mid-air. Then, an astronaut carefully squirts a drop of blue food colouring into the shimmering orb and — boom! — in an instant the orb is blue. Not the most surprising outcome, but still, right on!

But the fun doesn’t stop there. Next, the astronaut adds a drop of orange, which mixes with the blue to give the ball a mossy hue. Then, as if things weren’t getting crazy enough, he carefully pops an effervescent tablet into the ball, and it slowly begins to bubble and pop, occasionally shooting tiny orbs of water off into space. Cool.

The video, NASA explains, was shot using the Epic Dragon which is made by RED, a digital cinema company. The camera can shoot at something called 6K, which translates to 6144 x 3160 pixels (an HD TV usually displays 1920 x 1080). It also shoots at the incredibly high frame rate of 300 frames per second. NASA recommends that you change your YouTube settings to 2160 (4k) to view their video in all its glory. The team on the space station is currently testing the camera to see how its capabilities might be helpful in their scientific investigations.

But in the meantime, we all get to enjoy floating balls of water fizzing, popping and changing colours. Science: what’s not to like.