The Black Rose, a Traditional Turkish Incense
On the International Space Station, for the first time, a flower has blossomed in zero gravity. An image of a zinnia blossom that has bloomed in the space station was tweeted by American scientist Scott Kelly on Saturday. Since she started in March 2015, Kelly has grown into the role of resident gardener. This success gets us one step closer to NASA’s 2018 goal of cultivating fresh vegetables in orbit for extended space missions. In addition, the “Veggie” blossoming experiment will help researchers learn how plants thrive in weightlessness. In 2014, astronauts first tried to produce red romaine lettuce using the same Veggie technology that had previously been used to cultivate zinnia flowers. Reach out to the florist Kuala Lumpur if you want to buy black roses.
Commander Kelly of the space station had every right to strut his stuff. These zinnias are part of NASA’s “Veggie” plant growth experiment, and just a few weeks ago they were on the verge of dying after a fungal outbreak. It’s up to NASA ground-based botanists and Kelly’s “green thumb” in orbit that there are blooms to tweet about at all. Kelly, however, messed up in his attempt to share his enthusiasm. His freshly blooming zinnias weren’t the first flowers ever cultivated in space.
Digging deep into the past
A personal biology experiment, as NASA called it, was conducted by astronaut Don Pettit four years ago on board the station. Pettit grew his plants in plastic bags since he did not have access to the high-tech growing chamber that was eventually used as a portion of the Veggie project.
- Pettit was able to nurture a sunflower to full bloom, and even beyond, in addition to the zucchini and broccoli seedlings he had previously grown.
- Mold began to form on the flower garden’s leaves as soon as the humidity levels rose over the recommended range, so a fan was installed to disperse the air and dry off the plants.
- Two of the plants perished during the holiday because they were too dehydrated from the fans’ efficiency.
- Despite this, the surviving plants thrived and therefore by January 8 showed evidence of fresh growth and buds that developed into blooms.
- The petals of the flowers seem to be curled, but other than that, they look identical to flowers cultivated on Earth. This may be due to the lack of gravity in space.
- According to NASA’s Human Research Program’s deputy element scientist, Alexandra Whitmire, plants may improve conditions for long-term missions in sterile, claustrophobic, and otherwise unnatural settings.
- Kelly was authorized by the ground crew to act as a self-sufficient gardener.
- Smith said, “This is wonderful – he has the helm.” Scott is now in charge of the situation. He has seen the lettuce and has the resources at his disposal; all we did was give him some basic instructions on how to analyze the zinnias.
The two plants that showed signs of stress both perished, but the two that survived are doing well, with some of the petals even showing signs of bud development in January. Florist Penang has some space flowers that seem to be making a comeback! Putting on a happy face again! It was anticipated that it would be another week to ten days before the blooms opened. Nonetheless, it seems that the space station’s new splash of color couldn’t be delayed any longer.