Watch Student Science Experiments Conducted on the International Space Station at 10:30 AM EDT

When YouTube Space Lab launched a com­pe­ti­tion call­ing for exper­i­ments to be con­duct­ed aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, thou­sands of high school stu­dents around the world respond­ed. The two win­ning exper­i­ments will be per­formed live Thurs­day at 7:30am PDT / 9:30am CDT / 10:30am EDT / 3:30pm BST / 4:30pm CEST. Back on Earth, we can watch astro­naut Suni­ta Williams live in the micro­grav­i­ty cap­sule as she puts the exper­i­ments to the test.

Stu­dents sub­mit­ted short videos explain­ing the sci­en­tif­ic exper­i­ments they hoped to see test­ed aboard the space sta­tion. One of the win­ning pro­pos­als, from Amr Mohamed of Egypt, asks whether zebra spi­ders, which jump on their prey, will be able to catch their food in their usu­al way in micro­grav­i­ty. The oth­er exper­i­ment, from Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma of Michi­gan, asks whether the growth of bac­te­ria deliv­ered into space will slow down when cer­tain com­pounds are added.

YouTube view­ers helped choose the win­ners from a pool of six semi-final­ists. Then mate­ri­als need­ed to con­duct the two win­ning exper­i­ments were packed into a rock­et and sent up to the space sta­tion, 250 miles above the Earth.

Watch live as Williams observes bac­te­ria and hun­gry zebra spi­ders in micro­grav­i­ty. Will the spi­ders fig­ure out a new way to hunt?

Kate Rix is a free­lance writer in Oak­land. See more of her work at .