Watch: How Fire Behaves In Space, NASA Experiment

American space agency NASA successfully conducted its Saffire-I science experiment in space last week. Saffire-I or safe fire was carried out to study the behavior of fire in microgravity. The experiment was reportedly conducted aboard Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo capsule, which had previously been attached to the International Space Station (ISS) for a few months.

The Cygnus cargo capsule was filled with more than 1814 kilograms of trash, comprising of cotton fiberglass material, and released from the ISS. Subsequently, after some hours a fire started inside the space vehicle, and the process was captured by several cameras and sensors inside the module, all of which will be relayed back over the next few days.  NASA has released a video clip that shows the way smoke trails flows over the burning component. The fire shows up green with LED lights, followed by a pattern of undulating orange waves. The entire process of burning reportedly lasted for eight minutes.

Fires in space are unpredictable because of zero gravity. On Earth, the flames of a fire usually rise up, however in space air does not weigh anything therefore gases do not rise or fall. Until now, NASA had conducted experiments revolving around fire aboard the space laboratory; however each of those were done on small scale to avoid chances of mishap. However, the space agency could test the course of a bigger fire on the unattached Cygnus without endangering crew member of the ISS. Analyzing how fire spreads in lack of gravity is especially important for the safety of astronauts who live and work in space, and also for future missions such as the journey to Mars.

"The first of our planned three Saffire experiments operated as designed which is a great credit to all the people at NASA who played a role in its development," said Gary A. Ruff from NASA. "The success of this experiment opens the door to future large combustion experiments in the microgravity environment and directly supports the development of technologies and materials that will make deep space exploration spacecraft safer".  In the coming few days, the next Saffire experiments will be launched on the next Cygnus vehicle, following which the spacecraft will deorbit on June 22 and burn up in the atmosphere of our planet.