The crew of the International Space Station welcomes spring in orbit as experimental zinnia plants eke out a happy orange flower.
The first flower to bloom in space is an orange zinnia which was presented to the world by US astronaut Scott Kelly with this photo on Twitter.
#SpaceFlower out in the sun for the first time! #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/Cghu9XGv1J
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) January 17, 2016
Marathon U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly over the weekend tweeted images of the first flower to grow from a seed and subsequently bloom in space. The 13-petaled orange zinnia brought a little color to the otherwise aesthetically sterile surroundings on the ISS, and it was the first flower to show its glory in zero gravity. Kelly brought the flowers back to life after mold started growing on some of the leaves because of high humidity, according to a recent NASA blog. He joked on Twitter that he needed to channel his “inner Mark Watney”, referring to the fictional character in the film “The Martian” who successfully grew potatoes on Mars.
The new zinnia flowers are the first grown in the #Veggie facility and represent decades of plant research in space. pic.twitter.com/JlUG3icDRd — ISS Research (@ISS_Research) January 17, 2016
Zinnias are colorful, long-lasting flowers that are also edible.
The chipper-looking bloom is a zinnia, a plant related to sunflowers and daisies. It can come in many colors, but the one on the space station is bright orange with a tinge of yellow. A small garden of the plants is growing in the VEG-01 module, an experiment focused on raising edible and ornamental plants in space.
The ultimate goal of the VEG-01 (known more popularly as just “Veggie”) is to sort out how astronauts could grow food on long-range missions, such as a mission to Mars. The ISS gets regular resupply runs from Earth, but adventurers on the way to far-off areas of the solar system won’t have that luxury.
In 2012, astronaut Don Pettit successfully grew a zucchini, sunflower and broccoli out of zip-lock plastic bags on the ISS as personal science experiment. Pettit documented the life of his “companions” in a NASA blog called “Diary of Space Zucchini”.
Still, these small victories are just the beginning.
“I hope to see Veggie’s success as the first step in food production that will allow astronauts on the space station to enjoy fresh food and gain knowledge as we explore beyond low-Earth orbit,” said Brian Onate, who helped build the plant growth system before it went into space.