TIL that NASA has been launching jellyfish into space since the 90’s. Originally 2,478 were sent up and there were 60,000 orbiting Earth by the mission’s end 20 years later. The jellyfish that have returned reportedly ‘hate life on Earth.’

via reddit.com

Go you want to birth an Eldridge horror? This is how you birth an Eldridge horror

I want to know how they decided that they hate life on earth

I mean, who doesn’t

The “jellyfish that have returned” are the offspring of the ones sent up; they “hate life on Earth” because they were born into a world without gravity - no direction, different kinds of pressure, so when they return they have trouble adapting and (according to the Read More in the source) “Jellyfish babies, at least, have to deal with massive vertigo on Earth after spending their first few days in space,” which you can tell because you can measure how disoriented a jellyfish is compared with norma behavior. TL;DR your cthulu is an infant with a migraine

I have SO MANY questions, re:the jellyfish space habitat.

I mean I guess it’s probably just an airtight aquarium on board the ISS, but I read it the first several times as the jellyfish were just floating in open space.

tbh when I read “NASA has been launching jellyfish into space for years” my initial mental image was just NASA with a giant slingshot flinging jellyfish after jellyfish into the void 

Same, and the fact I had little to no reaction to learning they were not only alive but reproducing just goes to show how much I believe jellyfish are capable of

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In 1991, 2478 jellyfish were sent into space, and there were 60,000 by the mission’s end.

Source: ‘To carry it out, the space shuttle Columbia launched into space a payload of 2,478 jellyfish polyps—creatures contained within flasks and bags that were filled with artificial seawater. Astronauts injected chemicals into those bags that would induce the polyps to swim freely (and, ultimately, reproduce). Over the course of the mission, the creatures proliferated: By mission’s close, there were some 60,000 jellies orbiting Earth.’

This was to study how microgravity affects their development.

Source: ‘What makes this experiment significant is the fact that humans have similar structures to sense which way is up or down. Sending jellyfish polyps into space, letting them develop, and then observing them back on Earth can give us a pretty good idea of how humans born and reared in space may respond when they later set foot on a planetary body.’

They found that, compared to jellyfish who developed on earth, their swimming was abnormal.

Source: ‘Pulsing abnormalities, however, were found in greater numbers (18.3%) in space-developed ephyrae than in Earth-developed controls (2.9%). These abnormalities suggest abnormal development of the graviceptors, the neuromuscular system, or a defect in the integration between these systems in apparently microgravity-sensitive animals.’

However, the mission was not 20 years long. In fact, the jellyfish were only in space for 9 days.

Source: ’Aurelia polyps (scyphistomae) and ephyrae were exposed to microgravity for nine days aboard the space shuttle during the SLS-1 mission.’

Source: 'In 2013, Deep Sea News reported on the jellyfish and the study’s findings in a humorous way. Like a game of telephone, the true story of these jellyfish was blown out of proportion. Publications cited this mission and made the assumption that the jellyfish had recently returned from space — that they had been up in the sky for 20 years.’

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