Opening a Shaken Coke Can Underwater

YouTube / Chris Hadfield
YouTube / Chris Hadfield / YouTube / Chris Hadfield
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Today's science question: Let's say you're living in a pressurized habitat beneath the sea, you shake up a Coke can, and then you open it. What happens? In this brief video, Chris Hadfield (then aboard the Aquarius lab near the Florida Keys) shows us. Don't try this at home—unless you happen to live in a container with ~2.5 atmospheres of pressure.

My favorite background joke: a2 + b2 = flat Coke. (Though, yes, technically speaking it's not flat—has a nice little fizz to it, as Hadfield says.)

For more Physics talk on why this happens, check out an extensive Reddit thread.