![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/space-spud1.jpg\")
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FILE – Astronaut Don Pettit shared a photo of a weird object growing on the International Space Station. (Don Pettit\/X \/ FOX Weather) <\/p>\n
The internet went into a frenzy on Friday when a NASA <\/a>astronaut shared a weird alien-looking photo on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n The photo showed an object that was floating in the air and appeared to be purple, egg-shaped with tentacles spouting out of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n NASA PAUSES GATEWAY LUNAR-ORBIT SPACE STATION TO BUILD LUNAR BASE ON THE MOON<\/a><\/p>\n Users were in utter shock when they saw the photo. One user responded to the astronaut by telling him to “kill it with fire.”<\/p>\n Another said, “looks like a mimic hatching out of an egg,” referring to the movie, “Prey.”\u00a0<\/p>\n One user even joked by commenting, “Bro, I genuinely thought this was some kind of egg hatching.”<\/p>\n WATCH: NASA’S HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE CAPTURES RARE PROOF OF COMET BREAKING APART<\/a><\/p>\n Although the photo is very strange, the object isn\u2019t evidence of extraterrestrial life forms but is rather a normal everyday item.\u00a0<\/p>\n The astronaut, Donald Pettit, who snapped the picture, posted on X that the object was a potato he had been growing in his space<\/a> garden.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tentacles are seen spouting out of an object that is growing on the International Space Station. (Don Pettit\/X \/ FOX Weather) <\/p>\n “Spudnik-1, an orbiting potato on @Space_Station,” astronaut Pettit said on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n Astronaut Pettit took the photo in the middle of Expedition 72 on the International Space Station<\/a> (ISS), which took place from September 2024 to April 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I flew potatoes on Expedition 72 for my space garden, an activity I did in my off-duty time,” astronaut Pettit said. “This is an early purple potato, complete with a spot of Velcro hook to anchor it in my improvised grow light terrarium.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Pettit continued to tell users that he was inspired by Andy Weir\u2019s book and movie “The Martian” to start growing potatoes.<\/p>\n “Potatoes are one of the most efficient plants based on edible nutrition to total plant mass (including roots),” Pettit said. “Potatoes will have a place in future exploration of space. So, I thought it was good to get started now.”\u00a0<\/p>\n HERE’S WHY NASA WILL MONITOR THE SUN FOR SOLAR ERUPTIONS DURING ARTEMIS II MISSION<\/a><\/p>\n According to NASA<\/a>, astronauts have been growing plants in the space garden for years in order to study plant growth in microgravity, while adding fresh food to the astronauts\u2019 diet.\u00a0<\/p>\n In recent years, NASA has successfully grown three types of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, mizuna mustard, red Russian kale and zinnia flowers in space.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read more on FOX Weather.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Air and Space<\/a>Unusual<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article FILE – Astronaut Don Pettit shared a photo of a weird object growing on the International Space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[40426,3,79,193,146119],"class_list":{"0":"post-547320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-air-space","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-unusual"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/space-spud2.jpg\")
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