Bladderwrack to Space to Solve Mystery

Bladderwrack from the Baltic Sea has been sent into space. This could be the first step in solving a 30-year-old mystery.

Bladderwrack reproduces when there is a full or new moon, but why is unclear, as previously reported by Swedish Science Radio. ‘One theory is that the bladderwrack senses the pull of the moon,’ says researcher Lena Kautsky to SVT Sciense News.

– This is the very first experiment to see how the bladderwrack reacts to changes in gravity, she says to the channel.

Lena Kautsky has been trying to answer the riddle for 30 years. She is professor emeritus of marine plant ecology at Stockholm University/Sweden, and was present at the launch earlier this week. Test tubes with shoots of bladderwrack from the Baltic Sea were sent up by a rocket from the Esrange space base outside Kiruna in the northern part of Sweden.

– It feels breathtaking, fantastic, in a way redemptive,’ she says to Vetenskapsradion.

Kautsky will now investigate how the seaweed, which has been in space for ten minutes, is affected and compare it with plants that have remained on Earth.

The space stay is a first step in the project. The hope is to apply to send bladderwrack up to the International Space Station (ISS) for two weeks when a full moon occurs – and then get more answers to solve the riddle, reports Swedish Science Radio.