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Physical Chemistry

What would happen to the bubbles in a fizzy drink at zero-g?

Profile image of PUJA SINGH
12 Years agoGrade
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1 Answer

Profile image of Suraj Prasad
11 Years ago
when we’re on Earth and you crack into a can of drink, it fizzes up because the bubbles know what is up and what is down because there is a density gradient in the fluid. The bubbles are less dense than the liquid because they take up muchmore space than they actually weigh, and as a result they are pushed to the top of the fluid – they float.Now if you’re in space, there is no up and down because there is no gradient like that in the same way, so if you do actually produce a fizzy drink or some froth in space, what happens is the bubbles just sit there, interestingly.

Scientists have done this, from NASA; they actually took some Alka-Seltzers to the International Space Station and dissolved them in some water inside a plastic bag, so they could see what the bubbles did. And you get a range of bubbles of different sizes; and what happens is you get a small bubble formed because it is easier for a small bubble to make a bigger bubble so all the small bubbles join in and they tend to coalesce, and you get a range of bubbles but they are all fairly large. But they remain static in three dimensional space so you just have this bag of fluid with bubbles perched all over the place in it, not glued to the side, but actually inside in the body of the fluid so the bubbles basically won’t float like they do on Earth.