"I'm going to have to channel my inner Mark Watney," astronaut Scott Kelly had said in December.
Remember how in the Hollywood film The Martian, Matt Damon's character Mark Watney grows potatoes on Mars to survive on the Red Planet? While that's still a sci-fi achievement, here's a bit of real life news that'll leave you quite impressed. Astronauts in space have managed to grow the first ever flower in zero gravity.
American astronaut Scott Kelly, who is spending a year in space starting March last year, recently tweeted a picture of a beautiful orange zinnia grown in orbit.
Captain Kelly also shared a blog by NASA that explains the process of growing the plants in space to "
better understand how plants grow in microgravity."
Earlier in December, the astronaut also tweeted a picture of the budding plant looking quite fragile. "I'm going to have to channel my inner Mark Watney," he had said in his tweet.
And lo and behold, the plant has sprouted its first flower come January.
Captain Kelly, accompanied by Russian colleague Mikhail Korniyenko, have already spent over 290 days of the 342-day-mission aboard the International Space Station.