Two plucky spiders on the
International Space Station have bounced back from a tangled false start to
weave amazing new webs in zero gravity, astronauts said Friday.
The orb-weaving spiders were
transported to the station aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour earlier this week,
but initially wove
an aimless concoction in their lab enclosure during their first days in weightlessness.
But now they've taken another stab at weightless web construction.
"We noticed the spiders' made a
symmetrical web," the space station's current skipper Michael Fincke radioed to Mission Control today. "It looks
beautiful."
Fincke said he was amazed at how fast the
two eight-legged creatures appear to have adapted to living in space.
The spiders are part of an
experiment aimed at sparking interest in science among students on Earth. The
arachnids are the same kind of spider as "Charlotte"
in the children's book "Charlotte's
Web" by E.B. White.
Students on Earth will compare the
webs of the space station's spiders with those of similar arachnids on Earth
for the next few months. They'll also follow the lifecycle of painted lady
butterfly larvae, which also are part of the experiment. The University of Colorado
at Boulder is
overseeing the experiment and provided an ample supply of fruit flies to feed
the spiders, and nectar for the butterflies that will eventually emerge.
Along with the experiment, Endeavour
astronauts are undertaking a major home renovation mission at the
International Space Station. They delivered a second kitchen and bathroom, two
new astronaut bedrooms, additional gym equipment, a space food fridge and a
water recycling system that turns
urine into drinking water.
Mission Control noticed the new
spider web early Thursday and gave Fincke and his
station crewmates a heads-up to look out for it.
"While y'all have been busy
doing your extreme makeover, our spiders have done an extreme makeover and have
torn down their
first web and have made another one," flight controllers said.
On Friday, flight controllers on
Earth said the space station spiders were their new source of space
entertainment.
"I thought we were your main
entertainment, but I guess we've been taken over by spiders," Fincke said.
NASA is providing live coverage of
Endeavour's STS-126 mission on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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