Gravity in space or not? A viral video of China's Tiangong Space Station has sparked a heated online debate.
In the now-viral clip, an open glass of water was shown sitting still on a table, prompting netizens to dub the video as fake, as the liquid should not be staying that still in microgravity.
The clip – part of a science education program called Tiangong Class – was meant to demonstrate how buoyancy, the upward force action on an object submerged in a fluid, works differently in space.
Furthermore, the conspiracy theories gained more traction when AI chatbot Grok incorrectly responded to the questions about the clip, "Yes, water would float out of a glass in a space station due to microgravity."
However, experts have shared that there was nothing wrong with the video.
Science behind water being still in the glass in space
Jordan Bimm, a space historian at the University of Chicago, revealed to the Associated Press that in a weightless environment, water holds to itself and to surfaces such as glass due to surface tension.
He further noted, "Water molecules like to stick to glass and to other water molecules more than they like to disperse in the air."
This information means that the water can stay in a glass in space without floating away in the space station.
In the beginning of the video, an astronaut carefully filled the glass with a straw and then placed it on the table using Velcro to hold it in place.
The setup was part of a demonstration to show a ping-pong ball's behaviour in water in space.
