A bizarre floating growth on the International Space Station has sent the web right into a frenzy due to its alien-like roots.
NASA’s Don Pettit shared an image of a potato he grew while onboard the orbiting platform.
Nicknaming the crop ‘Spudnik-1’, Don said: ‘I flew potatoes on Expedition 72 for my space garden, an activity I did in my off-duty time.
‘That is an early purple potato, complete with a spot of hook Velcro to anchor it in my improvised grow light terrarium.’
He explained: ‘Potatoes are some of the efficient plants based on edible nutrition to total plant mass (including roots).
‘Recognised by Andy Weir in his book/movie ‘The Martian’, potatoes may have a spot in future exploration of space. So I assumed it good to start now!’
But not everyone was pleased with the results of his space experiment.
One commented: ‘I genuinely thought this was some type of egg hatching.’
The alien-looking potato had gross purple tendrils growing out of it, which Don explained was because of the zero gravity.
‘The roots would grow in all directions absent gravity, and all plants I even have ever grown in space have grown far slower than they’d have on Earth,’ he said.
Pettit experimented during his time on NASA’s Expedition 72 mission aboard the ISS.
In 2023, tomatoes which were grown in space were sent back to Earth after a successful NASA study into fresh food supply for future astronauts.
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After splashdown, the scientific samples were taken to NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, where scientists performed additional analyses before the results of gravity fully kicked in.
The Veg-05 experiment grew dwarf tomatoes within the station’s Veggie facility to look at the results of sunshine quality and fertiliser on fruit production, microbial safety, and dietary value.
The Veggie vegetable-production system on the ISS offers a possibility to develop a ‘pick-and-eat’ fresh vegetable component to food on the space station.
This particular investigation is predicted to assist define horticultural best practices to attain high yields of protected, nutritious dwarf tomato fruit to complement an area food plan of pre-packaged food.
It was also used to evaluate any psychological impacts that growing plants may need on the astronauts.
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