By Peter Weiss
It’s well known that water behaves differently in the near-zero gravity of a spacecraft than on Earth. Yet scientist-astronaut Donald R. Pettit, now aboard the International Space Station, was startled recently when he watched this most familiar of liquids stretch across a large metal hoop.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2003/03/2599.jpg?resize=150%2C131&ssl=1)
The odd behavior showed up just as Pettit was about to do some just-for-fun experiments with soap bubbles in his off-duty hours.