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In an interview this fall following his return to Earth from the Worldwide Area Station, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio shared just a little mission that had us gripped: after he’d harvested one of many first tomatoes grown in house 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 at first of December, the misplaced tomato reappeared. A photograph shared by now reveals there have been really two tomatoes within the rogue pattern — and, all issues thought of, they don’t look half dangerous.
Whereas a tomato left to rot on Earth isn’t a pleasing 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 have been recovered after roaming on station for practically a yr. NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio unintentionally 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 finding out how the house setting impacts plant progress. The crimson dwarf tomatoes have been grown as a part of a program known 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 alleged 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 have been hiding all that point. We have reached out to NASA and can replace this story if we discover out any extra data.
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