Ally,+Kayla,+Tim,+Kyle

Develop an experiment to test the effects of microgravity and present your findings to the class.
 * Drop Box Objectives:**

Use the scientific process as the basis for your project…
 * Drop Box Guidelines:**

What happens to a candle flame when it is placed in a box and the box is dropped from a certain height?
 * Ask a Question:**

Microgravity experiments using drop towers and Space Shuttle Orbiters have provided scientists valuable insights on how things burn. In the typical experiment, a flammable material, such as a candle, is ignited by a hot wire. The ignition and combustion process is recorded by movie cameras and other data collection devices. Using these devices, scientists have learned there are significant differences between fires on Earth in normal gravity and those in microgravity. The sequence of pictures, at the bottom of this page, illustrates a combustion experiment conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center 132 Meter Drop Tower. These pictures of a candle Candle Flames in Microgravity flame were recorded during a 5-second drop tower test. An electrically heated wire was used to ignite the candle and then withdrawn 1 second into the drop. As the pictures illustrate, the flame stabilizes quickly, and its shape appears to be constant throughout the remainder of the drop. Instead of the typical teardrop shape seen on Earth, the microgravity flams becomes spherical. On Earth, the flame is drawn into a tip by the rising hot gases. However, convection currents are greatly reduced in microgravity. Fresh oxygen is not being delivered to the candle by these currents. Instead, oxygen works it way slowly to the flame by the process of diffusion. Soon, the flame temperature begins to drop because the combustion is less vigorous. The lower temperature slows down the melting and vaporization of the candle wax. Candles onboard the first United States Microgravity Laboratory, launched in June 1992, burned from 45 seconds to about 1 minute before being extinguished because of the dropping temperature and reduction of wax vapor. In the absence of buoyancy-driven convection, as in microgravity, the supply of oxygen and fuel vapor to the flame is controlled by the much slower process of molecular diffusion. Where there is no "up" or "down," the flame tends toward sphericity. Heat lost to the top of the candle causes the base of the flame to be quenched, and only a portion of the sphere is seen. The diminished supply of oxygen and fuel causes the flame temperature to be lowered to the point that little or no soot forms. It also causes the flame to anchor far from the wick, so that the burning rate (the amount of wax consumed per unit time) is reduced.
 * Do Background Research:**

Our group thinks that as the candle is dropped that the flame will stay lit. As it falls gravity will create the flame to expand its spherical shape upwards. We believe that once it hits the ground it will return to it's original shape. The acceleration that gravity has is what will create the flame to expand or elongate.
 * When you think of a burning candle, you normally think of it as having a teardrop-shaped flame, thanks to intuition. The teardrop shape is caused by rising heat; as the candle burns, the heat of the burning wax and wick rises, due to the fact that hot air is less dense than cooler air. But in microgravity, the weight per unit volume of hot air is no different than that of cooler air, and will not rise. Instead, it will radiate in all directions, causing the flame to be spherical in shape.
 * Construct a Hypothesis:**

For our experiment we created a box out of cardboard to hold our candle. We cut one side of the box and we covered the inside with tin foil. We taped the candle to the bottom and then we put a clear overhead on the front side of the box so that the candle would be visible. We then placed our box inside the cat carrier and dropped it. We recorded it while the box was being dropped and we saw that our hypothesis was incorrect.
 * Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment:**

When watching our video we first noticed that the flame went out so our hypothesis was incorrect. We think that the only reason our flame went out was because of the impact. While it was falling the flame remained lit and once it hit the ground the impact created the flame to get really small and then go out quickly. Right before the impact the flame got really big and then suddenly went out. When it first started out the shape of the flame was oval, but then as it was dropping it took on a more spherical shape.
 * Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion:**