Say you were scuba diving 60 feet below the surface of the ocean and realize you have a raw egg with you. What to do? Crack the egg open underwater and play with it, right? In this video from Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), someone does just that. The pressure at that depth holds the egg white and yolk together as if it were still inside its unbroken shell.
Eggs are anchored to the inside of their shells, which you may notice at home when trying to get the last of the egg white out. Once that connection breaks, the egg comes out of its shell. The scuba diver twirls his finger around like a propeller, which pulls the shell-less egg towards him. It moves about like any one of the amazing sea jellies we’ve seen in nature videos. And certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest one that exists in the ocean.
There are actually two different species of sea jellies referred to as the fried egg jellyfish. One is huge and looks like it has a scrambled egg inside its bell. The other is a bit smaller and looks like it has an egg over easy resting on top.
Now that we know what happens if you crack an egg underwater, let’s find out what happens in the weightlessness of space! It seems NASA has never authorized this experiment, or sent raw eggs up with the astronauts. But thankfully a group of teachers tested it on a microgravity flight. The results were very similar. Though in this case, the team described it as looking like a little planet floating in space.
In the weightless plane experiment, the egg was inside a sealed box designed to contain everything so the instruments and panels don’t get covered in egg. However, the divers didn’t need to take such precautions. The video ends with one clapping his hands around the egg, breaking it and sending bits flying (swimming?).
Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.
