University of Mississippi researchers are sending a sonic experiment to Space Station. The project aims to develop method to control fluids in zero gravity using sound waves.
A device that can move liquids without physical contact sounds like the stuff of science fiction, so perhaps it’s appropriate that a prototype of just such a marvel is headed to the International Space Station for an out-of-this-world test of its capabilities.
When NASA’s next resupply mission to the ISS, Cygnus NG-17, blasts off Saturday morning (Feb. 19) from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, an acoustic tweezers device conceived and built at the University of Mississippi will be among its cargo.
Likun Zhang, assistant professor of physics and astronomy and a researcher at the university’s National Center for Physical Acoustics, and Robert Lirette, a former UM doctoral student in physics and postdoctoral research associate, hope to explore the ability of the device to control fluids in the zero-gravity environment of space.
For more details please see the article in the University of Mississippi News.