Four "astro-butterflies" hatched on the International Space Station. The butterflies are part of a suitcase-sized educational experiment sent into space with the STS-129 mission.
Four "astro-butterflies" hatched on the International Space Station. The butterflies are part of a suitcase-sized educational experiment sent into space with the STS-129 mission. Students of all ages as well as the general public are invited to follow the stages of development of these tiny team members, starting from the larval stage to adult butterflies in the microgravity environment of space.
In more than 100 classrooms in the US, students created control groups for the experiment by copying the living conditions of the butterflies with one small difference, that the experiment is in ground conditions under the gravity of the Earth. The goal is to examine and compare the development and behavior of the larvae and butterflies on the surface of the ground with those found in the microgravity environment in space.
The experiment was sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. NInformational sections on the butterflies in space project can be downloaded from Bio-Ed's website.
Preliminary results show that there are no significant differences in the development of the butterflies in the microgravity environment compared to the butterflies raised in gravity as DHA, which is in itself a significant finding, because a microgravity environment actually has a great impact on human development and growth. Although there is a big difference between humans and butterflies, the process of cell division is similar. Therefore, the success of the butterfly experiment in space perhaps indicates that human embryos may potentially survive and develop properly in space, and in zero gravity.
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30 years ago Aso experimented the same thing only if Roshen
I don't think anyone really thought that the butterflies wouldn't hatch from the cocoons due to lack of gravity. There is no process that humans go through in space that should have affected the development of the butterflies at this stage.
If you want to compare the butterflies to astronauts who suffered from the effects of being in space, you have to give the butterflies some time to develop in space, and then return them to Earth. Their wings may not be strong enough to fly, and it is certainly possible that a lineage of butterflies that spend several generations in space will lose the ability to fly in Earth's gravity.
Thank you
Eyal A:
My answer was complete and accurate.
When they say microgravity, they mean very low gravity. We are not talking about a certain order of magnitude.
If they were talking about a million (as has already been suggested and I'll grab on to the fact that I disagree on this too) it should have been said - a million of what.
You can see the definition of the term in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgravity
My favorite method (I don't remember which book) is not there: accelerating particles in a small (and probably good) accelerator so that when the particles are close to the speed of light their mass "increases" and therefore they produce gravity.
DON, RICHARD,
Wikipedia has a great summary of methods for creating artificial gravity. I'm not sure how practical they are, but here is the link
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9B%D7%91%D7%99%D7%93%D7%94_%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%AA#.D7.A9.D7.99.D7.98.D7.95.D7.AA
Don, for example by turning, as you spin a bucket of water on a table and the water "sticks" to the bottom of the bucket and does not fall into the table...
There are devices in the literature that create artificial gravity... but...
Michael,
thank you for the answer. Interesting what you said. At the same time, at the moment before calculation, I do not believe that those fluctuations in acceleration reach micro values, if not less. But if so, then you answered that it is a permanent thing.
to c. Gemstone
You don't always have to wait generations to see changes resulting from development in zero gravity.
Already from my biology studies at the university (since... 1980) I remember that there is an effect of the force of gravity on the development of the embryo in a chicken's egg (assuming that this is true for other creatures). Here I found a link to the things I learned then (mainly you will find in section 10, 14 and 19)
http://givatram.org/bank/content/sikumim/3_2009_72320_13.pdf
Partial quote:
"That gastrulation always starts from this point. The explanation for this is the force of gravity"
Is it possible to create artificial gravity? how?
The absence of gravitation has effects on the human body, for example calcium escape is accelerated. If the human race wants to establish colonies in space in the future, we need to know what the effects are on living organisms and what the effect is on the development of children.
For a gem..
I really haven't delved into how many generations if any are experimentally designed.
In any case, regarding the point you raised regarding the wings and evolution:
My logic makes me guess/assume –
In order to move in these conditions there will be an adaptation to expend less energy in movement and perhaps even in growing wings,
I believe that this energy could be channeled into developing other potential traits,
that did not float to the surface in the limitations of the energy routing balance under gravitational conditions like the Earth.
I don't understand the magnitude of the experiment. After all, every animal in a different gravitational environment will be born, live (albeit in a confusion of systems), etc.
A much more interesting experiment is to see 10 or more generations of a certain animal under such conditions. Will anything change over time? Will it be possible to see a change between the fiftieth generation and the original animal? Did we foresee the acceleration of evolutionary processes? What changes will occur?
As for the butterflies, I guess they won't need such big wings. Maybe even small-winged butterflies will have the advantage.
Thanks, Yossi.
fixed
It seems to me that the wording of the title (and of the line below it) should be corrected to "butterflies hatch from cocoons on the International Space Station" (and not use the word "shuttle", intended for the "spacecraft" that brought the experiment to the space station).
Ail.A:
A body moving in orbit around the Earth or another planet is in free fall and therefore does not "feel" gravity.
But: this claim is only true regarding its center of gravity. Other parts of it are actually not in equilibrium between gravity and the centrifugal force and have different accelerations called (and it is easy to understand why) tidal forces.
These are actually the differences between the centrifugal force at the same place in the spacecraft and the force of gravity.
The space station is a small body that is far from the earth whose gravity is not in the sky (literally) and therefore everything in it is very close to the equilibrium point and therefore the accelerations it feels are extremely small.
I did not just emphasize the importance of the magnitude of the Earth's gravity. If you open the formulas (it's not difficult - it's all about the gravitational force formulas and the centrifugal force formulas) you'll see that the buoyant forces increase more or less in direct proportion to the mass of the body moving around it (if the earth were a big enough black hole, these forces could be so great that the spaceship would disintegrate ).
In the current situation the forces are very small - micro and these are the forces that the butterflies feel.
It should be understood that these are not true gravitational accelerations but, as mentioned, only the sound of accelerations only one of which is gravity and in some places - the centrifugal acceleration is the one that is more significant - but at a point - acceleration is acceleration is acceleration - it is not possible to differentiate between its sources and therefore, what the butterflies feel , is like a small gravitation - micro gravitation.
This is probably due to the fact that the space station is in orbit around the Earth.
Micro = ten minus 6
That is, the millionth of gravity.
Yael, question:
What exactly is meant by the term "microgravity"? Is it due to small fluctuations or something permanent?
Thanks