Agnirva Space Premier League - Expedition #32265: Space Slime: What Can Physarum polycephalum Teach Us About Microgravity?
- Agnirva.com
- Aug 1
- 2 min read
Meet Physarum polycephalum—commonly known as slime mold. It’s not exactly a mold or a fungus, but a strange and fascinating organism that behaves like both. And thanks to a group of students from the Atlanta International School and Space Tango, this slime mold had a ticket to space.
Their project, flown aboard the ISS during Expedition 59/60, sought to understand how microgravity affects the functional behavior of Physarum. Why study slime mold in space? Because it’s a super-organism with problem-solving abilities, even though it has no brain. It can find the shortest path through a maze, adapt to changing environments, and even remember past conditions.
On Earth, Physarum grows and spreads across surfaces, seeking food sources like oats. In microgravity, however, everything changes. The students hypothesized that without the pull of gravity, the organism’s growth patterns, feeding strategies, and network-building abilities would alter.
Their space experiment involved a small habitat where Physarum was given a food source and monitored over time. The results revealed interesting behavior changes—such as more three-dimensional growth, altered pattern recognition, and potentially slower propagation.
This project shows the power of student-led science. By designing, developing, and analyzing this experiment, the students contributed real data to the field of astrobiology and cognitive biology. Plus, it inspired countless others to think differently about what science can be.
This experiment highlights how even simple organisms can teach us complex lessons about life beyond Earth.
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