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VIDEO: In Space, A Single Hair Can Move You

A post at Space.com led us to a NASA video that we find fascinating.

In it, astronaut Karen Nyberg, one of the six people now aboard the International Space Station, demonstrates how little effort it takes to move around in microgravity.

She takes a single strand of hair from her head, stretches it across a handrail and pushes off. You can watch as Nyberg then floats across the station. (And, yes, there's a connection to Sandra Bullock and the movie Gravity, as you'll see.)

This isn't her first hair-related video. In July, Nyberg demonstrated how she washes those long locks.

The 44-year-old Nyberg, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas, flew on a Space Shuttle Discovery mission to the space station in 2008. Her second trip to space began on May 28. She's scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 10.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.