A Russian space capsule dubbed 'Noah's Ark' has successfully landed back on Earth with more than 30 different experiments involving live mice and flies onboard.
The unusual mission saw the Bion-M No. 2 satellite launched into a polar orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket on 20 August, before orbiting Earth from pole to pole for 30 days.
The capsule, which also carried a host of plants and microorganisms onboard, landed in the steppes of the Orenburg region in southwest Russia on 19 September, with images from the landing suggesting it had caused a small bushfire.
Fortunately, the fire was quickly extinguished, and experts were helicoptered in to begin extracting the living creatures as soon as possible, allowing them to start their examinations.
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During the mission, the animals on board were exposed to space conditions, particularly high levels of cosmic radiation, in an attempt to test how life reacts to prolonged exposure to space.
A medical tent was quickly erected at the landing site where specialists could conduct their initial assessments. One of the first things they needed to do was assess the flies' motor activity to detect whether they were experiencing any nervous system problems, Space reports.
According to the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBMP), which led the mission alongside Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences, the creatures would then be transferred to IBMP laboratories the following day.
While the programme had more than 30 experiments in total, the research consisted of 10 different 'sections,' which are related to gravitational physiology in animals, with a bid to develop new technologies that will protect human life during flights against the impacts of cosmic radiation and weightlessness.
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The next three sections explore the impact of space flight and external factors on the biology of plants and microorganisms, aiming to gain a deeper understanding of the patterns of life in the universe.
Meanwhile, the sixth, eighth and ninth sections include biotechnological, technological, physical and technical experiments, while the seventh section looks at protecting crewed spacecrafts from radiation. The final section features a host of experiments conducted by students at various schools of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
One particular experiment, dubbed Meteorite, took place when the capsule re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and looked at a theory called panspermia.
The theory argues that life exists throughout the universe and can be distributed to planets through space dust, meteoroids, comets and asteroids.
Emma Rosemurgey