Apr 15 1996
From The Space Library
NASA disclosed the startling discoveries of Rice University astronomer C. Robert O'Dell and graduate student Kerry P. Handron, who had used images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope to pinpoint thousands of gigantic, tadpole-shaped objects surrounding a dying star, the first time that scientists had observed the forms in such abundance. The scientists hypothesized that the final outbursts of the dying star probably caused the gaseous knots, each several billion miles across. O'Dell concluded that if a dying star caused the gaseous knots, then trillions of these forms might litter the universe.
With funding from NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications and the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, researchers at Utah State University successfully developed a strain of wheat suitable for growth in space. The space wheat, called USU-Apogee, produced a yield equivalent to 600 bushels of grain per acre (21,000 liters of grain per 4,100 square meters), a rate three times more than the rate achieved in previous experiments.
Researchers had worked for more than a decade developing the wheat. During the tests, USU-Apogee had thrived under the difficult conditions of artificial sunlight and high levels of carbon dioxide. In conditions approximating the environment in space, the wheat grew on short stalks, produced an unusually large number of seeds, and maintained green leaf tips (reflecting proper calcium levels). Scientists hoped that astronauts would be able to grow the wheat in the future International Space Station, as a more economical means of providing food for long-term space residents than frequent Shuttle supply missions.
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