Frog photobomb: NASA launches rocket, frog
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Elizabeth Barber Contributor
One frog, of unidentified species, is in 鈥渦ncertain鈥� condition after the LADEE launch from Virginia's聽Wallops Island last week, according to NASA.
The space agency reported on Wednesday that a still camera recording the launch at Pad 0B at Wallops Flight Facility聽had taken 鈥渁n intriguing photo of an airborne frog.鈥�
The frog was probably enjoying a water pool that NASA scientists had put on the launchpad to , Universe Today reported. As the rocket lifted off, the amphibian was photographed shooting upward in a 聽(roughly) steam cloud. It has not been seen since.
NASA that the frog is not a joke: It really did launch a frog, the agency says.聽But NASA did not comment on whether it intended to launch the frog as part of its $263 million mission to the moon.
鈥淭he photo team confirms the frog is real and was captured in a single frame by one of the remote cameras used to photograph the launch,鈥� NASA said in a statement.
鈥淭he condition of the frog, however, is uncertain,鈥� it added.
The report of the frog鈥檚 one giant leap comes just four years after a during a launch of space shuttle Discovery. In that episode, a fruit bat was discovered napping on the shuttle鈥檚 fuel tank just before blastoff. NASA said it hoped the bat would leave. It did not. The rocket boosters ignited.
The bat was posthumously named Brian.
