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01/20/2025 08:19:29 pm

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China’s first science lesson from space



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On June 20th, China's first space science lesson came to a complete success. Chinese astronauts demonstrated the physical phenomena of weightlessness during the lecture from their position onboard China's Tiangong 1 space module.

Wang Yaping, the second Chinese woman to fly to space, introduced the weightlessness phenomena during the lecture, while Nie Haisheng assisted Wang Yaping to give the lesson, and Zhang Xiaoguang photographed the lesson.

During the 40-minute lesson, they conducted a string of experiments that demonstrated how objects behave in low gravity, including quality measurement, pendulum movement, gyroscopic movement and water ball experiment.

Nie Haisheng demonstrated by measuring his weight on the special space, which was designed on the basis of Newton's 2nd law, measuring the mass of an object through net force and acceleration. Wang Yaping encouraged the students to ask questions about what they're interested about the space. Students discussed how they weigh themselves on the earth.

Wang Yaping showed the students how water behaves in space, creating a bubble of liquid to demonstrate the properties of surface tension while in microgravity. "OK every students, magic is going to happen," Wang said as she made a water ball in space and held up the bubble of water trapped within a metal ring. The water ball didn't swing as it would on Earth but stayed suspended. When she pushed the ball gently, the ball moved in a circular motion.

About 330 elementary and middle school children participated in the valuable interactive lesson in Beijing, other students can watch the lesson through China's CCTV news channel, which was live broadcasted. "We hope the class will trigger young people's interest in space and spur their spirit of exploration." An official said.

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