NASA have been shooting jellyfish into Earth's orbit since the 1990s in a bid to create a "forcefield" of stinging space creatures that could protect the planet in case of an alien attack.
Just kidding.
There's actually a more sensible explanation:
Jellyfish are weird looking creatures. In fact you'd probably struggle to find anything that looks less human on Earth.
And yet we share one interesting feature with jellyfish: The ability to detect gravity through calcium crystals.
That's right! Jellyfish have calcium sulfate crystals hidden in little pockets along the border of their bell. These crystals are surrounded by tiny hairs, and when gravity or acceleration forces these crystals to move - the hair pick up the signal and pass it on to the brain.
Us humans have something similar that takes place inside our ears, known as an otolith.
Anyway, the idea of the jellyfish space experiment was to see what would happen if jellyfish gave birth in space. What would happen to the babies born in space? Would they be as sensitive to gravity or would they develop differently? And what would happen when they returned to Earth?
This is all important, because it gives us a clue what it would be like for a baby raised in space to return to Earth.
Unfortunately, scientists found that the newborn space jellyfish DID have problems interpreting gravity and navigating on Earth - suggesting human babies born in space might have the same difficulty.
