In an interview this fall following his return to Earth from the Worldwide House Station, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio shared a little bit mission that had us gripped: after he’d harvested one of many first tomatoes grown in area and bagged it up for a presentation, the bag and its contents went lacking. With no hint of the fruit, the opposite astronauts jokingly accused Rubio of consuming it. Then, eight months later initially of December, the misplaced tomato reappeared. A photograph shared by now exhibits there have been truly two tomatoes within the rogue pattern — and, all issues thought-about, they don’t look half unhealthy.
Whereas a tomato left to rot on Earth isn’t a nice factor to return throughout, Rubio’s tomatoes simply look a bit dried out. “Apart from some discoloration, it had no seen microbial or fungal progress,” NASA wrote in a weblog submit.
One small step for tomatoes, one large leap for plant-kind. 🍅
Two rogue tomatoes had been recovered after roaming on station for almost a 12 months. NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio by accident misplaced the fruit whereas harvesting for XROOTS, a soil-less plant experiment. https://t.co/ymAP24fxaX pic.twitter.com/AeIV8i6QKR
— ISS Analysis (@ISS_Research) December 14, 2023
NASA has for years been experimenting with methods to develop meals on the ISS and learning how the area atmosphere impacts plant progress. The pink dwarf tomatoes had been grown as a part of a program referred to as the eXposed Root On-Orbit Take a look at System, or XROOTS, which makes use of a mixture of hydroponic and aeroponic methods as an alternative of soil. Rubio, who was on the ISS for a record-breaking 371 days earlier than his return in September 2023, harvested a batch of to be despatched again to Earth and examined for the VEG-05 examine.
As for the pattern Rubio hung onto, which he meant to indicate to schoolkids in an occasion a crewmember had deliberate, the astronaut mentioned the tomatoes merely disappeared. “I used to be fairly assured that I Velcroed it the place I used to be imagined to Velcro it, after which I got here again and it was gone,” he mentioned. Rubio mentioned he spent “eight to twenty hours” searching for it, to no avail. Now that they’ve turned up (and since been thrown away), we’re simply dying to know the place they had been hiding all that point. We've reached out to NASA and can replace this story if we discover out any extra info.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/these-tomatoes-were-lost-on-the-international-space-station-for-almost-a-year-182601610.html?src=rss
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