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Two golden orb spiders are delivered by the STS-134 crew to the International Space Station so researchers can observe the arachnids' habits in microgravity.
12 lip 2022 · Humans have taken spiders into space more than once to study the importance of gravity to their web building and prey capture behaviors.
The microgravity of space impacts everything from the human body to water, and after sending arachnid astronauts to the ISS, scientists found that goes for spider webs too!
26 gru 2020 · The spider experiment by the US space agency NASA is a lesson in the frustrating failures and happy accidents that sometimes lead to unexpected research findings. The question was relatively simple: on Earth, spiders build asymmetrical webs with the center displaced towards the upper edge.
11 gru 2020 · In the 2011 spiders-in-space experiment, researchers studied webs the spiders spun both with and without light, and watched how the spiders oriented themselves. Webs woven in darkness turned out to be symmetric, while those built while the habitat was illuminated from the top had the same asymmetric shape as those seen on Earth.
14 gru 2020 · Now, a study of orb spiders (Trichonephila clavipes) in space has revealed that these smart arachnids can orientate themselves with light when there is no gravity to tell them which way is 'up'. Scientists have conducted myriad spider gravity experiments over the decades.
The free Spiders in Space Teacher’s Guide provides instructions for setting up ground-based spider habitats and helping students to design their own experiments. We invite you to use these resources and compare the behavior of spiders on Earth to that of Esmeralda and Gladstone during their travels in space.
