Little Balls of Fire

By Kathy A Svitil
Dec 1, 1996 6:00 AMNov 12, 2019 6:37 AM

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The space shuttle seems like the last place you would experiment with fire. But for two weeks last July, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia observed how tiny floating flame balls burned in sealed, gas- filled chambers. It wasn’t an esoteric exercise. Such small flames drive all internal combustion engines, and engineers might be able to improve on existing designs if they had more insight into how these flames form and burn.

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