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| Image credit here. |
The Mission
I bet you didn’t know that Russia launched a satellite
into orbit a little over half a year ago. The satellite contained five geckos. Scientists
hoped to study the behaviors of the lizards in microgravity, specifically the
reproductive activities. However shortly after obtaining orbit, contact was lost
with the space craft.
The satellite was called Foton-M4 and was launched on July 19
of 2014 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according russianspaceweb.com.
The Russian space agency that launched the ship was called Roscosmos.
The mission focused on one male and four female Mauritius ornate day geckos and
their reproduction, fertility, and the development of their offspring. However,
the satellite also contained other organisms such as mushrooms,
fruit flies, seeds, and microbes. Despite losing control of the craft, the
equipment was still sending data to the ground.
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| Image credit here. |
In 2013, Roscosmos sent a different spacecraft into orbit
with various
organisms on it. Most of these creatures died during the flight and the
scientists wished to learn how to ensure the safety of the crew of spaceships.
During the two month operation, it was hoped that the
geckos would successfully mate, and lay eggs. However,
this isn’t as easy as it sounds.
As biologist Athena Andreadis of the University of Massachusetts Medical
School put so delicately, "Sex is
very difficult in zero gravity, apparently, because you have no traction
and you keep bumping against the walls."
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| Image credit here. |
When the Russian scientists had no control over the
craft, their biggest fear was that the geckos would run out of food and starve
to death.
According to ZMEScience.com,
the satellite was traveling about 357 miles above the Earth’s surface. Contact
with the spacecraft was thought to have been lost because of interaction with
space junk.
Human Space Flight
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| Image credit here. |
By studying the effects of zero gravity on reproduction
the scientists hoped to apply it to future
human space flights.
It has been suggested that when humans first engage in
space travel, to explore the galaxy and study planets, that the offspring of
the humans who left Earth would be the ones actually conducting studies. As of
now, space travel is very slow, taking many months for a ship to even get to
Mars. Space journeys to farther reaches of the stars would take multiple human lifetimes.
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| One of the actual lizards used in the experiment. Image credit here. |
So, regardless of the absurdity of geckos having sex in space, the research did have practical applications.
Contact Reestablished
Thankfully, the scientists were able to regain control of
the satellite and it continued its mission until the planned ending point. However
when the craft returned to the surface, it was found that the geckos had frozen to death. Poor little geckos, at least they went out doing something they
loved.
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| Image credit here. |
It was rather disappointing that the craft was not lost in
space. It would have been amazing for the geckos to land on another planet and
populate the surface.
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| Image credit here. |
This is awesome! Usually all you hear about is dogs or monkeys, I think it is super cool that they sent reptiles into space as well. I totally thought the same thing when you said it was too bad they didn't land on a planet! That would be hilarious!
ReplyDeleteResearchers actually send a lot of different animals into space, although not very often. I was looking on the NASA website and found that in 2012 Japanese scientists brought fish aboard the international space station!
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