Animal Figure. A common female cross (or garden) spider, it was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to see what the effects of near-weightlessness in space would have on a spider's ability to spin webs. Sent into orbit in 1973 on the Skylab 3 space station. Named "Arabella" by NASA, the spider was initially disorientated, but eventually spun a number of webs, which were not much different symmetry-wise than Earth-spun webs, but had varied in degrees of thickness. Arabella died while in space, and her body is on display in the United States Space And Rocket Center Museum in Huntsville, Alabama.
Animal Figure. A common female cross (or garden) spider, it was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to see what the effects of near-weightlessness in space would have on a spider's ability to spin webs. Sent into orbit in 1973 on the Skylab 3 space station. Named "Arabella" by NASA, the spider was initially disorientated, but eventually spun a number of webs, which were not much different symmetry-wise than Earth-spun webs, but had varied in degrees of thickness. Arabella died while in space, and her body is on display in the United States Space And Rocket Center Museum in Huntsville, Alabama.
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