In zero gravity, a candle's flame doesn’t dance the way it does on Earth — it turns into a small, perfect sphere... and glows blue
Why? On Earth, flames stretch upward because of convection — hot air rises and pulls cooler oxygen in at the base, giving the flame its classic teardrop shape. But in microgravity, there’s no “up” — so no rising hot air.
Instead, oxygen diffuses slowly and evenly around the flame, and that creates a low-temperature burn. The flame becomes cooler, rounder, and blue, because there’s less soot and more efficient combustion.
So even fire behaves completely differently in space — calm, quiet, and spherical.
Science makes everything feel like magic.
Dress code??
The only time the enemy came this close to downing an Blackbird was Oxcart A-12 was on October 30, 1967. The missions were called Black Shield
During his first pass over North Vietnam, pilot Dennis Sullivan Detected Radar tracking. Two Sam’s sites prepared to launch, But neither did. During Sullivan’s second Pass, North Vietnam fired at least six missiles. Each is confirmed by vapor trails on Mission photography. The pilot saw the vapor trails in the photograph.
The pilot witnessed three missile detonations near and behind the A-12, which was traveling at Mach 3.1 at about 84,000 feet.
Post-fly inspection of the aircraft revealed that a piece of metal penetrated the underside of the right way, passing through three layers of titanium and lodged against a support structure of the wing tank.
The Fragment was not a Warhead palette, Probably debris from one of the missile Detonations that the pilot observed.
This is the first and last time a missile got that close.