Can you blow bubbles in outer space?

Bubbles are pretty neat, aren't they? You can blow bubbles from a special little wand and watch them float around in the air until... *POP* ...they're gone! What happened?

Well, a bubble is a lot like a balloon. When you blow into a balloon, you are filling it with air. Air is a lot like a pack of football players. Football players like to push their way to a touchdown. Air isn't going for a touchdown, but it is trying to get some space. Let's give this air from your breath a team name...the Wooshers.

The Wooshers push on the skin of the balloon and make it get bigger. It seems to take a lot of air to blow up a balloon, doesn't it? You blow and blow, but it takes forever to make the balloon big. That's because air outside of the balloon (let's call them The Wheezers ) is trying to push in the balloon! There is kind of a "pushing war" going on between the Wooshers and the the Wheezers. The Wooshers want to get into the Wheezers' space and the Wheezers want to get into the Wooshers' space! Just like a football game, huh?

The same thing happens with a bubble. The air inside the bubble is pushing the bubble's soapy film out, and the air outside the bubble is trying to push it in! Eventually, the pushing war ends up in a tie. Neither the Wooshers nor the Wheezers win. The bubble becomes fully formed and starts to float.

So, what makes the bubble pop? As the bubble floats, the bubble tries to keep the two teams in a tie. But both teams still want extra space! Now the Whooshers are pretty strong because they came from your mouth. Because your mouth is nice and warm, the Wooshers have a lot of energy. The Wheezers, on the other hand, aren't quite as warm. You see, the Wheezers live in the atmosphere. The atmosphere has a strange heating system. Near the Earth's surface, the atmosphere is warm. So a lot of Wheezers stay there to keep cozy. But the farther away you get from the surface, the colder the atmosphere gets. Only a few Wheezers are brave enough to stay in the cold.

So as the bubble starts to rise, the Wooshers start winning the pushing war. Since there aren't as many Wheezers in the cold upper atmosphere, the Wooshers are able to push the bubble hard enough to make it *POP*!

In space, there aren't any Wheezers because there isn't any air. So the Wooshers in your mouth have nobody to play against. If the Wooshers have no one to play with then why even bother making a bubble? So you can't blow bubbles in space. But you can here, so happy bubble-blowing!

Submitted by Will (Kentucky, USA )
(Novemer 3, 1997)



You might also be interested in:

What are the retrograde motions of planets in the sky?

It depends on which type of motion you are asking about. If you take a birds-eye view from the top of the solar system all the planets orbit around the Sun in a counter-clockwise (or direct) direction....more

How do Astronauts Live in Space?

Have you ever wondered how astronauts live in space? Did you know they do a lot of the same things we do here on Earth? Astronauts eat, exercise and sleep just like we do. However, their food isn't always...more

How far is the Earth from the Sun, the Moon and all the other planets? How far are all of the planets from the Sun? Do you know of a software that tracks the planets in real-time?

There is a really neat internet program called Solar System Live that shows where all of the planets and the Sun are. If you go to that page, you'll see an image similar to the one on the left. Below the...more

Is it really true that man never really walked on the Moon?

The picture of the American Flag (the one put there by the Apollo astronauts) is waving (or straight out) in the wind. How could that be possible if there is no atmosphere on the Moon? Was it some sort...more

How many planets orbit the sun?

I was wondering if there is a new planet? Are there planets (a tenth planet?) after Pluto belonging to our solar system? What are the names of the new planets discovered in the solar system? Are there...more

Did the Big Bang create any black holes? Wouldn't the universe evolve differently if some of the original energy had disappeared in black holes?

When an object has a really high energy, it can form a black hole. This is called a primordial black hole. Primordial black holes were formed near the beginning of the universe. Primordial black holes...more

Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA