This image shows a lump of free-floating molten metal suspended by electromagnetic force during 20 seconds of weightlessness on a parabolic flight. The European Space Agency's Blue Dot mission inaugurates the electromagnetic levitator in ESA's Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. This is a furnace that can heat metals up to 2100簞C and then cool them rapidly. For scientists observing liquid metals cooling in weightlessness, the furnace removes unnecessary complexity to reveal the core processes of physics. The electromagnetic levitator takes things a step further and suspends the metals in mid-air as they melt and solidify.