Zinnia: Get To See The Space Flower Up, Close And Personal, Courtesy NASA

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has once again stunned the world with its recent achievement. This time, the attention is on a unique flower called the ‘Zinnia flower’ that thrived in the most unexpected of environments. On June 13, 2023, NASA posted a beautiful image of a zinnia flower on the Instagram handle that has grown inside the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Veggie facility.

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A post shared by NASA (@nasa)

Sharing the picture of the space flower, NASA wrote, “Space flower 🌼

This zinnia was grown in orbit as part of the Veggie facility aboard the International Space Station. Scientists have been studying plants in space since the 1970s, but this particular experiment was started on the @ISS in 2015 by NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren.

Our space garden isn't just for show: learning how plants develop in orbit will help us understand how to grow crops off the Earth, providing a valuable source of fresh food on long-term missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. @NASAAstronauts have also grown lettuce, tomatoes (How To Grow Tomatoes At Home), and chile peppers on the ISS, among other vegetables—with plenty more plants to come.

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Credit: NASA/Scott Kelly”

They also shared the description of the flower which says, “A close-up of a zinnia flower in space, with its light-orange petals in full bloom. Its tangled leaves extend up into the top-left corner of the photo. Behind the flower, the Earth can be seen out-of-focus, with the blackness of space taking up most of the image's bottom half.”

On November 16, 2015, the Veggie plant experiment began its journey to learn more about how plants develop in microgravity, NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren started on the Veggie system and its rooting pillows containing zinnia seeds.

Some of my space flowers are on the rebound! No longer looking sad! #YearInSpacepic.twitter.com/HJzXaTItIf

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) January 8, 2016

The zinnia flower can be seen in all its beauty, with its vivid, light-orange petals in full bloom. This amazing accomplishment highlights NASA's continued initiatives to explore the possibilities of growing plants in space. It also shows the possibilities for supporting human life throughout extended space travel in addition to showing the existence of plants in space.

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According to NASA, the difficult task of growing the zinnias provided a rare chance for researchers back on earth to get a better understanding of how plants grow in microgravity and for astronauts to practice what they would be expected to do on a deep space mission: autonomous gardening. NASA astronauts have also grown lettuce, tomatoes, and chile peppers on the ISS.

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