14 DAY TRIAL // Five geckos – four ladies and one gentleman – tragically lost their lives after more-or-less willingly signing up for an experiment expected to provide information on how weightlessness influences love making behavior.
The lizards were launched into space by the Russian Federal Space Agency earlier this year, on July 19. The capsule that served as their home for what must have seemed like days on end returned to Earth this Monday.
Information shared with the public says that the capsule landed in the country's Orenburg region at around 1 p.m. When opening it, researchers with the Russian Federal Space Agency found that the geckos were all dead.
For the time being, it is unclear exactly how, when, and why these Russian space lizards lost their lives while in space. Word has it that they froze to death after one of the pieces of equipment meant to keep them warm and cosy failed to do its job.
“According to the preliminary information, it became clear the geckos froze. Most likely, this happened due to a failure of the equipment meant to ensure the temperature of the box with the animals,” a scientist working with the Agency said.
“The geckos could have died at any stage of the flight, and it’s impossible to judge when based on the animals’ mummified remains,” the researcher went on to comment on this incident in a recent interview with the press, as cited by The Guardian.
An investigation is underway, and folks with the Russian Federal Space Agency expect that they will soon know more about what killed the geckos. Specialists detail that, as part of this investigation, the animals' bodies are to be autopsied.
The geckos were sent into space in an attempt to better understand how weightlessness influences not just mating rituals, but also fertility and especially the structure of the eggs produced by females. During this experiment, the lizards were closely monitored with the help of cameras.
Researchers who have had the chance to have a look at footage from inside the capsule carrying these animals say that the geckos appear to have passed away about a week before returning to Earth. Shortly after death, they bodies began to mummify, they go on to explain.
Interestingly enough, it appears that fruit flies orbiting the Earth on the very same Russian satellite carrying the geckos not only did not die, but returned to Earth looking all healthy and accompanied by offspring produced in space.