I have come across multiple videos where an astronaut will let go of an object (just watched one where it was a bolt), and all of them tend to float upwards relative to the camera. Could it just be that earth is actually positioned “up” from the camera so gravity has an effect? or is it that when they let go of the object, they are subtly pushing it upwards? idk could somebody explain.
In: Physics
It’s just how the astronauts release items. Any subtle pushing from the astronauts fingers will decide what direction the item will float. Like pushing a hockey puck on ice.
So when an astronaut is making a video and is holding something with their palm facing upwards to show it, and then lets go of it with their palm facing upwards, chances are they’re gonna push it away from their palm and “upwards”.
Another thing is when they’re among a video showing something off, they’re gonna keep it up by their head where they can see it and where they know it stays visible in their video.
they are either 1. subtly pushing it as you say or 2. it’s an illusion of the camera or other things around it moving.
if everything else happens to be moving down, or if the camera is moving it could look like it’s floating up even if it’s really just staying perfectly still.
There’s no reason that I can think of for objects to consistently “fall” upward relative to the camera. I see three possible explanations. (1) The person releasing the object does so with a slight push upward, whether consciously or not. (2) The drift is random, and you happen to have only seen or noticed when the object floats up. (3) The clips where the object floats up are specifically selected and posted because they’re more interesting– they defy the expected behavior of falling objects here on terra firma.
No, I don’t think Earth’s gravity plays a part in this phenomenon, at least not any more than the astronauts or anything else in the vessel. The Space Station is in orbit– basically freefall.
They’re slightly pushing when letting them go.
Earth’s gravity taught us to hold things up, so astronauts’ reflexes are also to hold things “up” by default. Our muscles are also connected in a way that makes the hand gently push things when you’re opening your palm.
Okay, I am going to try my best to explain it.
Firstly, in a zero g environment, things are *very* sensitive to the smallest force. So, the act of releasing your grip on something might cause microscopic force to be exerted on the thing being released by the muscles in the hand.
Second, air flow in the habitation places play an effect. If there were no air flow, as astronauts breathe in a zero g environment they would use up the O2 around them. To combat this, 02 is pumped in to replace the C02, which gets pumped out. This creates a general air flow in the environment. Without seeing the specific insrance(s) you are talking about, that would be a really good second guess.
It’s the fact you are observing videos *meant* to show off weightlessness. That are all edited and filtered through to be entertaining and interesting looking. Not a representative sample of all behavior.
It’s like me looking at boxing highlights and saying “everytime I see someone punching in boxing it’s always a Knock Out”
Without the force of gravity pulling it down specifically, pretty much any small influence pushing or pulling it in any direction will make it go in that direction. More often than not, it’s the slight movements of the hands that just put a little upward energy into that direction.
Weightlessness in the ISS or any other orbital bodies does not come from a lack of gravity, but a lack of gravitational force caused by being in free fall. A way to think about it is that the ISS is falling towards the Earth so fast that it continuously misses because it can’t change direction fast enough.
Imagine a person standing on a platform and throwing a ball horizontally. If they throw it gently, the ball will fall to the ground a short distance away. But if they throw it harder, the ball will travel farther before hitting the ground. Now, if they could throw the ball fast enough, it would fall towards the Earth but the Earth’s curvature would cause it to miss the surface and continue falling in a curved path, never actually hitting the ground. This is how satellites, including the ISS, maintain their orbit—they are essentially “falling” around the Earth but moving forward fast enough that they keep missing it.
The bolt and the astronaut are both in free fall, experiencing the same gravitational force. According to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, in a free-falling reference frame, both the bolt and the astronaut feel as though they are in a state of weightlessness, as if no external forces are acting on them. This is because, locally, gravity can be thought of as being “cancelled out” by the free-fall motion.
From the perspective of the bolt and the astronaut, they are in what is called an inertial frame in the context of General Relativity. In this frame, they do not feel any force acting on them because they are both accelerating at the same rate due to gravity. This is why they float relative to each other. There are no additional forces acting on them from their perspective because they are both in free fall together, experiencing the same acceleration due to gravity. This absence of felt force is why astronauts inside the ISS experience weightlessness.
I’ll wrap this up as other answers already do a great job of explaining why things tend to float up, but hopefully this expands on the mechanics of free fall and gravity.
Look for flat earther videos and you’ll find videos of objects floating down. They try to use that as proof.
Objects float up in space because there is no gravity to pull them down. When an astronaut lets go of an object, there is no force acting on it to make it move in a particular direction, so it will continue to move in the same direction it was moving before the astronaut let go of it. Hope that helps!
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