close menu

Watch Alan Tudyk Explain Gravity As A Parasite Inside Wil Wheaton’s Brain

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has just released a fantastic explainer video about why astronauts appear weightless in space, even though they are still subject to Earth’s gravity. This latest video employs the help of Alan Tudyk, voicing a parasite inside Wil Wheaton’s brain. It’s quite good:

As the video explains, astronauts are never really weightless in space, they just appear that way relative to the ship or craft they are in. If we could zoom out far enough to see both the whole Earth and an orbiting astronaut, for example, we would see that they are indeed falling around the Earth and not floating. Every orbiting thing in the universe is falling around something else. “Every body in the universe is always falling towards something,” Tudyk’s parasite explains. “And if it doesn’t feel like you’re falling, that’s because you’re standing on something that is falling.”

Gravity GIF

NASA/JPL’s “Irrelevant Astronomy” series has had geek heroes in its science videos before. A few months ago, Ellen McClain–the voice of GLaDOS from the Portal series–voiced another Irrelevant Astronomy episdoe about the difference between nuclear fission and fusion.

By the way, there are such things as brain parasites. This one–a brain-eating amoeba–even has a “face,” which might in fact make you do this:

Wheaton GIF

The Mysterious Medical Condition That Gives People Dragon Faces

The Mysterious Medical Condition That Gives People Dragon Faces

article
Hundreds of Real Doctors Have Famous Fictional Doctor Names

Hundreds of Real Doctors Have Famous Fictional Doctor Names

article
What is Wrong with MAD MAX’s War Boys?

What is Wrong with MAD MAX’s War Boys?

article

Comments

  1. Henrik says:

    Alan and Wil should remake Innerspace.

  2. gridsleep says:

    On second thought, anyone else find themselves thinking of Moyashimon?

  3. gridsleep says:

    Gravity is compressed space.I am a leaf on the wind. Watch me soar.