China is planning to ship zebrafish to its area station sooner or later.Â
The small fish species will likely be despatched into orbit on China’s Tiangong area station as a part of analysis into the interplay between fish and microorganisms in a small closed ecosystem, Shanghai-based Guancha.cn reported. The experiment may even help analysis into bone loss in astronauts.
Zhang Wei, assistant to the commander-in-chief of China’s manned area engineering area software system, advised Chinese language media of the plan throughout a Area Station Science and Utility Mission Solicitation Seminar in Beijing on July 10. Additional info concerning the timeline of the experiment and its aquatic equipment was not disclosed.
Associated: China’s Tiangong area station
It is not going to be the primary time fish have been despatched to area. NASA’s Aquatic Habitat, or AQH, designed to review how microgravity impacts marine life, was despatched to the Worldwide Area Station in 2012. It hosted a small college of medaka, a small, freshwater fish native to Japan.Â
Zebrafish, or Danio rerio, had been earlier despatched to the Soviet Union’s Salyut 5 area station in 1976 aboard the Soyuz 21 mission. Soviet cosmonauts conducting experiments with the fish discovered that the Zebrafish appeared to switch a few of their behaviors in response to residing in microgravity.
Sending animals to area in the meantime dates again to 1947, earlier than the Soviet area canine Laika took her far more well-known flight on Sputnik 2 in 1957. Laika tragically overheated and died simply hours into her flight.
