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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Science
Richard Luscombe

Lost in space no more: missing tomato found in space station after eight months

ISS NASA Space Station Frank Rubio United States
Astronaut on the space station with gardening experiments.
Francisco ‘Frank’ Rubio grew the tomato and was accused of eating it, but was vindicated when the fleshy fruit turned up on the space station as mysteriously as it disappeared. Photograph: Nasa/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

It might have remained one of the greatest mysteries of the universe, destined never to be solved until a freak recent discovery by the crew of the International Space Station (ISS).

The subject? A tomato grown from seed in microgravity by the US astronaut Francisco “Frank” Rubio as part of an agricultural experiment.

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