China's Space Station Video: Science, Not Deception

A stagnant glass of water seen in videos of Chinese astronauts proves the footage wasn’t actually filmed in space.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Experts say the footage is consistent with how water behaves in zero gravity, and there is no reason to doubt China’s presence in space. Other videos show one of the astronauts carefully putting the water in the glass using a container with a straw, as well as strips that adhere the glass to the table.

THE FACTS: A compilation of footage filmed aboard Tiangong, the Chinese space station, has raised suspicion online about its actual location, thanks to the glass of water.

News footage from a 2021 science lecture by Tiangong’s Shenzhou-13 crew and of the crew’s return to Earth plays throughout the compilation. The water glass is highlighted in a circle that has been edited into the footage.

“How did they get the water into the glass?” text in the video asks. “And how is it not floating out of the glass?”

One Instagram post featuring the compilation suggests this is proof that the footage wasn’t actually taken in space: “How could they get away with such a massive deception? Wouldn’t other countries call us out?” The post had received more than 36,500 likes by Friday.

But the footage is not proof of deception: There’s a basic scientific phenomenon that explains the water’s behaviour, an expert told The Associated Press.

“Water molecules like to stick to glass and also to other water molecules more than they like to disperse in the air,” Jordan Bimm, a postdoctoral researcher and space historian at the University of Chicago, told the AP. “So if there is no external force, water remains in ‘clumps’ in the weightless environment, and in this case inside the glass.”

He added that surface tension — a property of a liquid’s surface that helps define its shape and allows it to resist external forces — “also works to help maintain the static shape and presents the illusion of how water would act on the ground.”

A separate video posted on Weibo, a social media platform popular in China, in June 2022 by China’s manned space program shows behind-the-scenes footage of the Shenzhou-13 crew preparing for their livestream lesson by carefully pouring water into the glass through a straw so that it stays in place. It also clearly shows strips adhering the glass to the table.

During their lesson, the taikonauts also demonstrated another behavior of water unique to zero-gravity environments by submerging a ping pong ball in the glass. The ball would float to the top on Earth because of water buoyancy, but in space it stays submerged.

Other astronauts from around the world have also posted videos about how liquids work in space, including how they make coffee or what happens when they wring out a wet towel.

There is also other evidence backing up the fact that Tiangong is indeed among the stars.

“It is extremely unlikely that the video was faked, as Chinese space program actors have very little reason to fake a video,” said Molly Silk, a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester who has studied the Chinese space program. “The presence of the space station has been verified by international actors, including China’s biggest space competitor the US.”

Silk explained that China has even offered United Nations member states to send their astronauts to Tiangong — “an offer that would be extremely unlikely if China indeed did not have a space station to send people to.”

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.