Edutainment
The Space Blooms with Zinnias
Not really, but we are on the probability now. Scientists have successfully seen Zinnias blooming in space after harvesting a crop of lettuce. What comes next?
Experts have achieved something unachievable this week. They have successfully grown a flower in space … the first ever!
The flower thus grown is a beautiful orange colored, sunflower-lookalike Zinnia. And they are edible too! The photographs been shared from the space by Scott Kelly have lured many to the Internet tweeting pictures of his plants and yet more to discussions.
Planted at around Christmas, it was feared these plants won’t survive this time again. Leaves were noticed to be too fragile. High level of humidity and limited air made the plants weak from the very beginning. Scot Kelly, who was there watching the plants grow, worked hard and managed to help them bloom.
Along with Zinnias, news is that the team had also harvested lettuce last year. Now they plan to grow tomatoes next.
If the scientists succeed in growing tomatoes, it will be their step-forward to space farming. With Zinnias now having bloomed in the space, scientists have tackled a few more challenges that they might face further in space farming.
But it was a lot harder work to grow the plants in space than it is in space. A high-efficiency lighting system, without losing energy on heat, has to be used as per the stage of growth of plants. Since these plants were growing to be very sensitive in space, protection against mould, bacteria, fungi, etc., was also much needed.
