Extraterrestrial horrors are growing on the International Space Station — or so aghast netizens seemed to believe.
Over the weekend, NASA astronaut Don Pettit shared an image of an egg-shaped object floating in the orbital outpost. Bursting through its surface were purple, tentacular protrusions, like a sign of life that some man-eating alien was incubating inside. A patch of perfectly white cilia grew elsewhere on its surface.
This mystifying object? A spud like any you’d find in your pantry.
“Spudnik-1, an orbiting potato on @Space_Station!” Pettit cheerily captioned the shot.
Spudnik-1, an orbiting potato on @Space_Station! I flew potatoes on Expedition 72 for my space garden, an activity I did in my off-duty time. This is an early purple potato, complete with spot of hook Velcro to anchor it in my improvised grow light terrarium. Potatoes are one… pic.twitter.com/MXsoV20vJ8
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) March 20, 2026
Pettit’s impressive space gardening achievement was met with awe and praise — but also grossed-out reactions to the vegetable’s unsettling appearance, perhaps recalling the ovomorph eggs from the “Alien” films, or reflecting a populace unfamiliar with the produce section.
“Kill it with fire!!!” one user replied on X.
“I’ve seen this movie before,” a Redditor wrote. “That’s an alien egg.”
“I genuinely thought this was some kind of egg hatching,” another X user said.
The “tentacles,” of course, are simply the potato sprouting — which, to be fair, can sometimes look a little freaky, as anyone who has left some sitting in their pantry for too long can attest. (Pettit shared that absent gravity, the roots “will grow in all directions,” sending additional shudders among the potato paranoid.)
But what about the white cilia? That was a velcro hook Pettit stuck on to keep them from floating away in his terrarium. A clever solution.
The potato’s current fate is unknown, but the photo was from Pettit’s last mission on the ISS, Expedition 72, which took place between September 2024 and April 2025. He explained that he worked on the space garden in his spare time, extolling the potato’s suitability for growing in off-world environments. Some research has suggested that potatoes could even be grown in lunar soil.
“Potatoes are one of the most efficient plants based on edible nutrition to total plant mass (including roots),” he wrote. “Recognized by Andy Weir in his book/movie ‘The Martian,’ potatoes will have a place in future exploration of space. So I thought it good to get started now!”
More on space: Why Is Everyone Losing Their Minds Over This Little Old Mars Pyramid?
The post Netizens Terrified of What NASA Grew on the Space Station: A Potato appeared first on Futurism.
