An intrepid
spider may have survived the long months at the International Space Station,
with scientists eager to know for sure once it returns to Earth aboard the
space shuttle Discovery.
The
arachnid, one of two
orb weaving spiders sent to the station last November, is due to land with
Discovery's astronaut crew in Florida on Saturday afternoon. The spiders, and some
butterfly larvae, are part of an educational experiment with students on Earth
to compare their development
in zero gravity with their counterparts on Earth.
"Everybody
is rooting for the spider," NASA's station program scientist Julie Robinson
told SPACE.com Thursday.
Space
station astronauts named the spiders Elmo and Spiderman and checked in on them
from time to time during their months in orbit. The arachnids are the same as
the spider "Charlotte" in the children's book "Charlotte's
Web" by E.B. White.
"The spider
habitat was very hard to see inside because there were quite a bit of fruit fly
carcasses, as you might expect from a hungry spider," station commander Michael
Fincke radioed Mission Control this week as he packed the spider and butterfly
larvae habitats for Discovery's
Wednesday departure. "Spiderman and Elmo are on their way home."
As of
February, scientists knew that at least one of the spiders was still alive
because they saw it in a camera that was watching
the two arachnids, Robinson said. But it was hard to see through the webs
inside the enclosure to learn the second spider's fate, she added.
The Painted
Lady butterfly larvae did not fare as well.
Of the many
larvae sent to the station - in a different enclosure than the spiders - only
two managed to form a chrysalis but neither emerged as a butterfly, Robinson
said. In the months since they launched, the nectar provided as their food had
turned moldy, Fincke said.
"That's not
necessarily surprising because developmental biology is affected by microgravity,"
Robinson said. But even on Earth, trying to cultivate butterflies is tricky, so
it is difficult to know for sure, she added.
BioServe
Space Technologies of the University of Colorado in Boulder is overseeing the
spider and butterfly experiment, with scientists planning to open the two
habitats for the first time on Sunday. It is one of several efforts to encourage student
interest in science, technology and math by through space station science,
Robinson said.
There is
also an added bonus, she added.
Another
group of scientists is interested in the dead fruit flies used to feed Elmo and
Spiderman. Initially launched as spider chow, the flies appeared to have
multiplied over time to give the spiders a steady food supply.
Robinson
said it turned into an accidental experiment in long-duration,
multi-generational fruit fly spaceflight.
"There
might be a possibility that there may be a live fruit fly alive in there and
they'll be looking for that," she said.
Discovery undocked
from the space station on Wednesday and is poised to land Saturday at NASA's
Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to end a 13-day mission. While
the spiders spun their webs inside the station, the astronauts performed three
spacewalks to add the
last pair of U.S. solar arrays to the station, boosting it to full power.
They also
swapped out one crewmember, NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus, who arrived at the
station last November with the spiders. It was students from Magnus's hometown
of Belleville, Ill., who suggested the names Elmo and Spiderman.
As for the
spiders themselves, scientists are hopeful but only time will tell.
"A spider
can live a long time," Robinson said, adding that arachnids can also slow their
metabolism to survive. "They can hang in there."
SPACE.com
is providing continuous coverage of STS-119 with reporter
Clara Moskowitz and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for shuttle
mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
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