‘Blob’ sent off to International Space Station! Here’s how school students will participate in the space research project

Blob sent off to International Space Station: The European Space Agency has launched a single-cell slime mould to the International Space Station. Nicknamed Blob, scientists will use the natural slime mould to observe it in microgravity.

The European Space Agency said the brainless Blob, composed of one cell, was still moving, feeding, and organising itself and transmitting knowledge to like-minded slime moulds.

The goal of the investigation is to study the influence microgravity has on the Blob’s behaviour — if it will behave differently in space and the effect of radiation and microgravity on its evolution.

An @ESA investigation, Blob, allows students to study a naturally-occurring slime mold that is capable of basic forms of learning and adaptation. Students replicate experiments conducted by @Thom_astro to see how the Blob’s behavior is affected by microgravity. pic.twitter.com/I4tTXlDDAQ

— ISS Research (@ISS_Research) August 10, 2021

Blob was launched to the International Space Station on Northrop Grumman’s NASA commercial resupply mission. European Space Agency astronaut and space photographer Thomas Pesquet will wake up the Blob by watering it on the International Space Station. He will then proceed to take pictures under two scientific protocols. One protocol will study the response of two Blobs alongside each other in an environment where there is no food. The other will analyse the Blobs in the presence of food.

School students will conduct similar experiments and compare their results to a time-lapse video of Blob from space. They will observe the differences in the Blob’s shape, speed, and growth. The goal of the experiment is to get more children in France and other member states of the European Space Agency more immersed in biological sciences.

The French space agency CNES is partnering with its national scientific research centre on the project.

CNES’ education department chief Evelyne Cortiade-Marché said Blob was a unique experience, stimulating the curiosity among students regarding the impact of the environment on organisms and their development.

The seven-day experiment will see four-second videos of Blob being automatically recorded every 10 minutes on a micro SD card.