ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti participating in Italian Space Agency ASI’s Acoustic Diagnostics experiment aboard the International Space Station.
This experiment uses special headphones containing a small device that records the response of the inner ear to study the effect of microgravity and background noise on astronaut hearing. Detecting hearing loss in space will both help take care of astronauts’ health during long missions and improve a device for testing hearing more accurately in any noisy environment on Earth.
You can follow along with Samantha's mission Minerva via Samantha’s Twitter, Flickr and TikTok accounts, or via our dedicated Minerva page.