Scientists have expressed outrage over the Virgin Galactic mission, during which the remains of ancient ancestors Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi were sent to the edge of space. This marked the first time that fossilized remains of ancient ancestors had traveled into outer space, and scientists frowned upon the event.
In this tube, the fossilized bones of ancient human relatives traveled to the edge of space.
Virgin Galatic
The remains were selected by Lee Berger, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence and director of the Center for Deep Human History at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, who played a key role in the discovery of both species. Selected for this mission were a fragment of the clavicle of the 2-million-year-old A. sediba, first discovered by Berger's son in 2008, as well as the thumb bone of H. naledi, a mysterious hominid about 300,000 years old found in Rising Star Cave in 2013 by a team of researchers. whom Berger called "Underground Astronauts".
The remains of Homo naledi, whose thumb bone was sent to the edge of space on September 8, 2023, on a Virgin Galactic ship.
livescience.com
Flying the remains into space was widely condemned for lacking a scientific purpose, especially since a mission failure could have destroyed the priceless specimens.
