TOKYO: A cosmic mystery is uniting monks and scientists in Japan after a cherry tree grown from a seed that orbited the earth for eight months bloomed years earlier than expected — and with very surprising flowers.
The four-year-old sapling — grown from a cherry stone that spent time aboard the International Space Station (ISS) — burst into blossom on April 1, possibly a full six years ahead of Mother Nature's normal schedule.
Its early blooming baffled Buddhist brothers at the ancient temple in central Japan where the tree is growing.
"We are amazed to see how fast it has grown," Masahiro Kajita, chief priest at the Ganjoji temple in Gifu, told AFP by telephone.
A number of seeds, including cherry stones from Japan's 1,250-year-old "Chujo-hime-seigan-zakura" tree, had been sent up to the International Space Station as part of an experiment to see what affect space would have on the seeds and their subsequent growth.
The wonder pip was among 265 harvested from the celebrated "Chujo-hime-seigan-zakura" tree, selected as part of a project to gather seeds from different kinds of cherry trees at 14 locations across Japan.
After spending a year on the station the seeds were returned to the Earth where some were sent off to a lab for testing while others were planted. Surprisingly, one of the stones from the cherry tree that had been growing for four years suddenly burst in to bloom a full six years earlier than expected.
Kaori Tomita-Yokotani, a researcher at the University of Tsukuba who took part in the project, told AFP she was stumped by the extra-terrestrial mystery.
"We still cannot rule out the possibility that it has been somewhat influenced by its exposure to the space environment," she said.
Tomita-Yokotani, a plant physiologist, said it was difficult to explain why the temple tree has grown so fast because there was no control group to compare its growth with that of other trees.
She said cross-pollination with another species could not be ruled out, but a lack of data was hampering an explanation.
"Of course, there is the possibility that exposure to stronger cosmic rays accelerated the process of sprouting and overall growth," she said.
"From a scientific point of view, we can only say we don't know why." Wakata is back aboard the ISS, where he is in command of the station. The astronaut took part in a video link-up on Thursday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, chatting about his daily life hundreds of kilometres above the earth.
"From a scientific point of view, we can only say we don't know why."
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Source: Times of India
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