Science/Space geeks: ISS microgravity

[O2HeN2]

The toy sticking down is probably due to the airflow requirements in the capsule.

Now here's an answer that could explain it. I know it's conjecture, but it makes sense. In the Dragon capsule I could see the airflow being designed to go from the astronaut's heads to their feet, which would explain the plush toy settling in down towards the footrests over and over. I can also envision that when the astronauts do weightless demos, they'd go out of their way to assure there were as little air movement as possible in the area where they're doing the demos.

O2

Ps. Someone had previously stated "air currents". As a standalone explanation I rejected that because, at least to me, that implies a natural phenomenon such as convection which does not happen in zero G. If you ment to imply more, my apologies.

[DenverGP]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/...777346?lang=en

Link to a video on twitter from Elon showing the toy floating in the capsule.

[DenverGP]

Another vid of it a bit after the hatch was opened

[Aloha_Shooter]

The water globules form due to the surface tension of the water but they float due to the lack of gravity. In microgravity situations, there actually is a very tiny gravitational force that acts as a stabilizing force. This has been used by spacecraft to maintain a "vertical" configuration (i.e., one axis pointed radially to the center of the Earth) by using a long pole with a weight at the end (could also be a spacecraft payload). The differences in gravitational forces at either end of the pole are sufficient to keep the spacecraft from tumbling.

There ARE air currents and eddies in the space station and probably the Dragon capsule due to the movement of astronauts and the life support systems actively trying to move air. If they didn't move the air, the CO2 exhaled would linger around the astronauts and they'd suffocate quickly.

The motion of "Ripley" looks to me like classic zero-g/microgravity with air currents from the opened hatch and the life support systems causing it to move around. Note that once it is free to move, it will be affected by it's own angular and linear momentum in 3D free space which may not correspond exactly to the capsule's motion causing apparent motion within the capsule.