| Outer space can have a strange effect on living things. A team of astronauts from Japan took seeds from a cherry tree with them on a space mission. After returning, they made an unusual discovery when they planted them. The seeds had been taken from a famous old tree near a temple in Japan. The tree is thought to be over 1,000 years old. Normally, this type of cherry tree does not bloom until after ten full years of growth. When it does bloom, the individual flowers have about 30 petals. The seeds that the astronauts had taken into space grew at a much faster rate. The trees bloomed after just four years of growth. Also, the flowers only contained about five petals each. Scientists cannot explain why this happened. It must have been something the seeds were exposed to in space that changed their growth rate. |