posted 05-11-2016 02:54 AM               

In 2009, ABC News interviewed flight surgeon J.D. Polk in the lead up to the STS-125 mission (which, by coincidence, launched seven years ago today):

Earthly snoring occurs when gravity pulls the tongue and soft tissues in the rear of your mouth backward. If your airway is partially obstructed you get these tissues flapping.

In microgravity, the tongue and the jaw do not fall back in the throat, so there is less airway obstruction in space.

Just a few minutes ago, we took one of our camcorders and we decided to go downstairs where the red shift was sleeping. We have those three crew members in their sleep stations, and all their doors are pretty far shut. Except, there was one. And I'm not going to tell you who was in that sleep station, except, that he has never flown in space before this flight.

I saw that crack in the sleep station and went up to it. We put our ear up next to that thing, and we found, in fact, that people do snore in space. This noise on this one was not very loud, but it certainly was identifiable as a snore.

I guess there's been some reports of other crew members snoring much louder; although, I've never heard it, which might give you some evidence of where that's coming from.

So, I think a lot of people have wondered about this before: What causes that action in the back of your throat and your nose, but it's certainly not affected by zero-g.