Astronaut Rayyanah Barnawi conducting experiment on board International Space Station

Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali Al Qarni answered a number of questions that curious Saudi youngsters asked them while participating in a live broadcast from their International Space Station. The astronauts conducted scientific experiments aimed at raising scientific awareness of the school students over the ground stations across the Kingdom.

In a video clip posted by the Saudi Space Commission on Twitter on Saturday, Abdullah, a sixth grade elementary school student from the northern Tabuk region asked: What do astronauts eat while staying on the International Space Station?

In her reply Barnawi, said: “We brought frozen food from the ground. We put water on it, and it is ready for eating after five or ten minutes.” She also showed him some models of food, adding that they have many types of food on board.

In a rare educational motivational event, Barnawi and Al Qarni conducted on Saturday three educational awareness experiments from the International Space Station in real time with 12,000 Saudi students across 42 different locations in the Kingdom. These real time experiments with the Saudi crew aboard the ISS occurred in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the King Abdulaziz and his Companions Foundation for Creativity (Mawhiba), with schools in Riyadh and Misk.

Three educational experiments were conducted on Saturday as part of the 14 scientific experiments taken by the Saudi astronauts during their mission, which included a range of tests from human research and cell science to artificial rain in microgravity. The objective of the three experiments is to enhance the students’ knowledge of space science and its contribution to improving the quality of life on earth, by juxtaposing their terrestrial based experiments to the ones being conducted in real-time by the Saudi crew aboard ISS, according to a statement of Saudi Space Commission.

Students could see first-hand how the experiment environment can have a real effect on the results. The focus of the experiments was on Liquid Fireworks, Space Kite, and Heat transfer focused on fluid mechanics, aerodynamics and heat transfer, respectively. This real-time interaction ensured that students had access to the Saudi crew live as they performed their experiments together, one on Earth, and one in space simultaneously to compare and contrast.

The students were divided in three groups relative to their age groups. The first group, 9-12 years, experimented with liquid fireworks, focusing on fluid mechanics. They could compare the effects of microgravity on the speed and shapes of the fluids in space, and witness the impact of gravity on fluids live.

The second group, 13-15 years, built space kites to experiment aerodynamics’ alteration in microgravity compared to earth. The third group, 15-18 years, experimented with heat transfer to see the changes of colour and time in heat transfer under the impact of microgravity in space in the aim of educating the students that radiation is the only way to transfer heat in space and that heat is transferred differently in space.

It is noteworthy that the ISS has its own radio communication program known as Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), which aims to inspire male and female students around the world to develop their career and develop their scientific passion, by enabling students to make contact with the ISS crew.