A Russian space capsule carrying 45 mice and a good number of lizards, newts, gerbils, snails, and other life forms, has returned to Earth after a month-long mission around the planet's orbit. Most of the creatures died but they carry with them data that scientists can use to look into the possibility of a manned mission to Mars.
According to the Russian Mission Control, the Bion-M spacecraft landed around 750 miles from Moscow with its parachutes deployed for a safe landing on a planted field. The experiment sent the creatures to see the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on the structure of living cells.
A report published on Phys.org said that all of the space gerbils died while majority of the cosmo-newts and mice failed to return alive. Russian space experts explained that most of the animals died because of the stress caused by failure of some equipment. The survivors of the space mission were brought to a laboratory for some evaluation.
It is not yet clear what knowledge the scientists wish to gain from this experiment but it will definitely provide some idea how humans will fare during extended space missions or when exposed to the harsh environment of the Red Planet.
Bion-M went on orbit 357 miles above the planet. The experiment specifically aimed to look into what microgravity can do to the hearts, nervous systems, and muscles of different organisms. The animals were sent to space because the experiment cannot be performed on humans currently posted at the International Space Station (ISS).
Similar experiments done on board the ISS before have proved that some creatures can survive space journeys. Back in 1973, two spiders named Arabella and Anita went into orbit on board Skylab 3 as subjects of an experiment on extended space travel around the orbit of the Earth.
The latest mission is considered to be one of the most advanced performed by Russian space experts. The state media dubbed it as a very unique space mission that no other nation has completed before.
The Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales of France reported that 15 of the mice that were sent for the space experiment came from a research laboratory in France that is collaborating with the Russian study.
The space agency in Russia is looking forward to sending rovers and probes to Mars to collect soil samples in 2016 and another mission on 2018. Russia has also expressed its intentions of constructing a base on the moon come 2030.
The Bion-M was launched in April 19.
