{"id":595465,"date":"2026-08-25T11:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/595465\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T11:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:38:10","slug":"in-1973-nasa-sent-two-spiders-into-space-to-test-web-building-without-gravity-how-arabella-and-anita-learned-adapted-and-spun-complete-webs-in-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/595465\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1973, NASA sent two spiders into space to test web-building without gravity: How Arabella and Anita learned, adapted, and spun complete webs in orbit |"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/spiders-in-space.jpg\" alt=\"In 1973, NASA sent two spiders into space to test web-building without gravity: How Arabella and Anita learned, adapted, and spun complete webs in orbit\" title=\"In 1973, NASA sent two spiders into space to test web-building without gravity: How Arabella and Anita learned, adapted, and spun complete webs in orbit.\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>In 1973, NASA sent two spiders into space to test web-building without gravity: How Arabella and Anita learned, adapted, and spun complete webs in orbit. Imagine being so lucky that you get sent to space by NASA, without slogging for years to don the spacesuit!Arabella and Anita were those lucky chaps\u2026 err, spiders!In 1973, NASA slipped two cross spiders into a Skylab mission, asking a question so simple it almost feels like a kid\u2019s science fair project: Can spiders still build proper webs when there\u2019s no gravity pulling them down?The answer wasn\u2019t obvious at first, as Arabella\u2019s first web looked like a tangled mess. But after just a couple of days, something amazing happened. She spun a nearly perfect web, right there in orbit, miles above Earth. Anita gave it a shot next, and before long, both had adapted to their bizarre new surroundings, perfecting their technique with each web. Each strand and spiral turned into a visual note: a message showing just how living things can adjust when everything they know flips upside down.But here\u2019s the part that makes this whole story so charming: this experiment didn\u2019t come from a legendary scientist at NASA. Per NASA, it was dreamed up by Judith Miles, a Lexington high schooler who was just 17 at the time. Through NASA\u2019s student experiment program, she proposed \u201cWeb Formation in Zero Gravity,\u201d wondering if spiders could manage without one of their main environmental cues. On Earth, spiders use everything from gravity to tiny vibrations to help figure out this whole web-building puzzle. Without gravity, Miles figured, all bets were off.So NASA went for it. Arabella and Anita hitchhiked into orbit alongside astronauts, fish eggs, mice, flies \u2014 the usual weird animal menagerie scientists love to send into space. At first, Arabella just threw some lines together, as if she was just testing things out. But soon, she found her footing, spinning a web that actually held together. Each attempt got better. NASA records say they kept adding more radial threads, tweaking their designs, and adapting fast. Owen Garriott, one of the astronauts, watched Arabella figure things out in real time\u2014and, honestly, was impressed by how quickly she learned.The story most often heard is, \u201cNASA sent spiders to space, and the spiders figured out how to spin webs without gravity.\u201d That\u2019s true, but the real story is richer. Their space webs weren\u2019t copy-paste versions of the neat ones they spun back on Earth. Examining the webs that came back down, scientists noticed the threads in space were far finer\u2014probably because the spiders\u2019 senses and motor skills were getting scrambled without gravity\u2019s guidance. The first space webs lacked the normal tidy circular pattern, but on subsequent tries, the spiders started adding symmetry back in, like they were learning and experimenting.It wasn\u2019t just a curious sideshow, either. The experiment gave researchers a way to watch how a living thing\u2019s brain and body respond when the familiar rules disappear. On Earth, humans (and spiders) take gravity for granted. It gives us balance, helps us know which direction is up, and shapes pretty much everything we do. Take it away, and your body and brain have to improvise.Watching the spiders, one could literally see the learning process, right there in the shifting geometry of their webs. What started as chaos became order again, proof that even tiny creatures can adjust to wild new circumstances.The story, though, doesn\u2019t get a fairy-tale ending. Neither Arabella nor Anita made it through the entire mission. NASA\u2019s logs suggest they died because of dehydration, which makes it a lot less dramatic than re-entry or some sci-fi disaster. Anita passed away first, followed by Arabella, their remains memorialized as a quiet footnote to the history of space exploration. Anita now rests with the Smithsonian\u2019s Air and Space Museum, a tiny, delicate symbol of curiosity\u2019s power.Fifty years later, those silent spiders, spinning their improbable webs in orbit, still capture the imagination. And the real lesson isn\u2019t just that spiders can handle weightlessness; it\u2019s that life, even in utterly unfamiliar circumstances, can figure out how to adapt, sometimes in only a matter of days. Whether you\u2019re eight-legged or an astronaut, sometimes the trick is letting go of the old rules and learning to build something new, even if it doesn\u2019t look perfect at first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1973, NASA sent two spiders into space to test web-building without gravity: How Arabella and Anita learned,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[269304,269308,85,46,269309,269303,141,145,144953,97257,269305,269307,269306],"class_list":["post-595465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-arabella-and-anita","tag-gravity-and-spiders","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nasa-animal-experiments","tag-nasa-spiders","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-biology","tag-space-exploration-history","tag-space-web-building","tag-web-formation-in-space","tag-zero-gravity-experiments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}