The Fish That Spun, Flipped, and Laid Eggs Aboard China’s Space

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Four zebrafish spent 43 days in orbit aboard the Tiangong space station, breaking records and advancing space biology. In 2025, China will send more. They were fish out of water. Swimming in a fishbowl 380 kilometers above Earth, they flipped, spun, and struggled to find their bearings — until they adapted. For 43 days in 2024, four zebrafish orbited China’s Tiangong space station, surviving in space longer than any fish before them. Last April, the zebrafish traveled aboard the Shenzhou-18 spacecraft, becoming the first residents of the “Tiangong fishbowl.” There they lived in a closed aquatic ecosystem, shattering the previous space survival record of 16 days — set by German scientists studying swordtail fish. In 2025, China is sending more, with another six zebrafish set to return to orbit as scientists expand the experiment. They will study how vertebrates adapt to microgravity, a key step toward sustaining human life in space. Wang Gaohong, a researcher at the Chinese Ac ………………………………