NASA Scientist Sends Egg to Space and What Happens Next Stuns the Internet
Egg Drop Challenge from Space
Mark Rober’s Big Idea
Have you ever tried dropping an egg without breaking it? Most of us do this from a chair or a ladder. But Mark Rober wanted to go much higher. Mark is a famous YouTuber and the founder of CrunchLabs. He has almost 57 million fans! He loves to do science experiments and share them with everyone.
One day, he thought, “What if I drop an egg from space and it doesn’t break?” That would be the coolest egg drop ever! He called his video “Egg Drop From Space.” Mark wanted to make sure the egg would be safe all the way down to the ground.
Building the Space Egg Rocket
First, Mark and his team had to come up with a plan. He thought about dropping the egg off the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. But then, he had an even bigger idea. He wanted to send the egg all the way up to space!
Mark and his friends built a special rocket. They put the raw egg inside. Then, they used a huge weather balloon to carry the rocket high into the sky. But there was a problem. Space is very cold. The egg could freeze and crack before it even came back down!
So, Mark had to keep the egg warm. He added insulation to the rocket. This would protect the egg during its journey.
A Scary Moment in Space
The big day finally came. Mark and his team launched the balloon with the egg-rocket. Everything was going well at first. The balloon rose higher and higher. But after about two hours, something went wrong.
The cords holding the balloon started to twist. They wrapped around the string that was supposed to bring the rocket back down. The balloon collapsed and the rocket started to fall to Earth very fast—about 150 miles per hour!
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Everyone was worried. Would the egg survive this fall? There was only one hope left. The rocket had to break free from the falling balloon and land safely on its own.
Egg Landing Success
Luckily, the rocket was able to separate from the broken balloon. It came down all by itself and landed on the ground. Mark and his team rushed over to check the egg.
When they opened the rocket, Mark reached inside. He pulled out the egg. It was still in one piece! Mark cheered, “We’re safe on Earth. Two for two, baby.” This meant his experiment worked!
In the video, Mark wrote, “Next year we’re doing this on Mars.” Mark hasn’t posted a Mars egg drop yet, but fans are waiting to see what he does next.
NASA’s Plan to Retire the Space Station
The Future of the International Space Station
NASA has a big plan. They want to bring the International Space Station (ISS) back to Earth. The ISS has been floating in space since 1998. Astronauts from all over the world have lived and worked there. They learned many things about space.
But now, NASA says it is time for the ISS to retire. They do not want it to crash anywhere by accident. So, they have a careful plan to bring it down safely.
A Spacecraft to Guide the ISS Home
NASA wants to spend about one billion dollars on a new spacecraft. This special ship is called the Station Deorbit Spacecraft. Its job is to push the ISS out of orbit and make sure it lands in the ocean.
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NASA does not want the ISS to fall on houses or cities. Instead, they will aim for a spot in the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo. This is the farthest spot from any land.
How the Plan Will Work
NASA and other space agencies studied how to do this safely. The new spacecraft must work the first time. It also needs backup systems. If something goes wrong, it should still be able to finish the job.
NASA asked companies to send in their ideas for this deorbit vehicle. The deadline was November 17. NASA will pick the best design.
The ISS will start to move toward Earth in 2030. When it is about 175 miles above the ground, the new spacecraft will push it down. The crew will come home first with important items.
Drinking Water That’s Billions of Years Old
The Oldest Water on Earth
What is the oldest thing you have ever tasted? Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar drank something very old. She is a geologist from the University of Toronto. In 2013, her team found water deep underground in Timmins, Ontario, Canada.
This water was more than 1.5 billion years old! It was found 1.5 miles under the ground. It had not been touched by anything from the outside world for a very long time.
Describing the Ancient Water
Professor Lollar wanted to know what the ancient water tasted like. She took a sip. She said, “Because of the reactions between the water and the rock, it is extremely salty. It is more viscous than tap water. It has the consistency of a very light maple syrup.”
The water did not have any color when it first came out. But when it touched air, it turned orange. That was because of the iron and other minerals inside.
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Lollar said, “We are interested in the saltiest waters because they are the oldest, and tasting is the quick-and-dirty way to find which are the most salty.”
Finding Even Older Water
Just three years later, in 2016, the team found even older water in the same mine. This water was more than 2.6 billion years old! It became the oldest water ever found.
Lollar explained, “By looking at the sulphate in the water, we were able to see a fingerprint that’s indicative of the presence of life. And we were able to indicate that the signal we are seeing in the fluids has to have been produced by microbiology - and most importantly has to have been produced over a very long time scale.”
So, the chemicals in the water showed that tiny life forms lived there for billions of years.
Felix Baumgartner’s Record Breaking Jump
Jumping From the Edge of Space
Some people like to do daring things. Felix Baumgartner is one of them. He is a skydiver from Australia. In 2012, he wanted to break a world record. He wanted to jump from the edge of space!
On October 14, Felix went up in a balloon to almost 39,000 meters above Earth. That is higher than most airplanes fly. Then, he jumped out! He fell for over 36,000 meters before opening his parachute.
Breaking the Sound Barrier
Felix set a new record. He was the first person to fall faster than the speed of sound without a vehicle. He also had the highest free-fall parachute jump and the fastest speed in free-fall.
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During his jump, he reached a speed of 1,357.6 kilometers per hour. That is more than 800 miles per hour! After nine minutes and nine seconds, he landed safely back on the ground.
“First we got off with a beautiful launch and then we had a bit of drama with a power supply issue to my visor,” Felix said. “The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I'd just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up. It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I'd lose consciousness. I didn't feel a sonic boom because I was so busy just trying to stabilize myself.”
Even Higher Jumps
Felix’s jump was shown live on TV and online. Everyone watched and cheered. But two years later, another man broke his record. Alan Eustace jumped from 41,422 meters, going even higher than Felix.
Felix and Alan both showed how brave and prepared you must be to jump from the edge of space.
New Ways to Talk to Space
NASA’s Laser Messages
NASA loves to try new technology. Lately, they have been testing a new way to talk to spaceships far from Earth. They are using a special kind of light called lasers. The new system is called Deep Space Optical Communications.
NASA sent a spaceship called Psyche to an asteroid. While it travels, Psyche sends back laser messages and pictures to Earth. In November, NASA received a laser message from 10 million miles away! One of the first things they sent was a cat video.
Why Lasers Are Special
Lasers can send messages much faster than radio waves. That means we get data and pictures from space more quickly. But lasers are harder to use because they need to be aimed very carefully. Sometimes, NASA uses both lasers and radio together.
In January, NASA got a picture from the Psyche team at 15.63 megabits per second. This is 40 times faster than normal radio!
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How NASA Listens to Lasers
NASA’s ground team used a big antenna with seven hexagonal mirrors. Barzia Tehrani from NASA explained, “It’s a high-tolerance optical system built on a 34-meter [112-foot] flexible structure. We use a system of mirrors, precise sensors, and cameras to actively align and direct laser from deep space into a fiber reaching the detector.”
Tehrani added, “For decades, we have been adding new radio frequencies to the DSN’s giant antennas located around the globe, so the most feasible next step is to include optical frequencies. We can have one asset doing two things at the same time; converting our communication roads into highways and saving time, money, and resources.”
With this new laser system, NASA hopes to send and receive even more information from far away in space.
Amazing Science for Everyone
All of these stories show us how exciting science can be. People like Mark Rober, Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Felix Baumgartner, and NASA’s teams all have big ideas. They work hard to solve problems and try new things.
Maybe one day, you will try a wild science experiment, too. Maybe you will send a message from space, find something ancient, or break a record. Science lets us learn, explore, and dream big.
“We’re safe on Earth. Two for two, baby.” - Mark Rober
“Because of the reactions between the water and the rock, it is extremely salty. It is more viscous than tap water. It has the consistency of a very light maple syrup.” - Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar
“First we got off with a beautiful launch and then we had a bit of drama with a power supply issue to my visor. The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I'd just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up. It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I'd lose consciousness. I didn't feel a sonic boom because I was so busy just trying to stabilize myself.” - Felix Baumgartner
“It’s a high-tolerance optical system built on a 34-meter [112-foot] flexible structure. We use a system of mirrors, precise sensors, and cameras to actively align and direct laser from deep space into a fiber reaching the detector.” - Barzia Tehrani
Science is for everyone. If you are curious, you can be a scientist, too!
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