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NASA ISS astronauts: We haven't seen any unicorns in space 'so far'

A young space fan drops a surprise mythology question on NASA's current ISS crew.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
Amanda Kooser
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The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the M20 nebula with jets emerging from it that make it look a bit like a unicorn.

NASA/ESA and Jeff Hester (Arizona State University)

Leave it up to children to ask the important questions. A young space fan queried a group of astronauts on the International Space Station about a key topic today: "I keep looking for unicorns on Earth, but have you seen them in space?" the 5-year-old asked

The question triggered smiles from the astronauts, who are currently orbiting Earth. NASA's Mike Hopkins fielded the query, saying, "So far, the answer is no, we have not seen any unicorns up here, but we're gonna keep looking."

Singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes hosted NASA's Connected by Earth astronaut Q&A event in honor of Earth Day on Thursday. The session involved NASA's current ISS residents Mark Vande Hei, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Hopkins along with Soichi Noguchi of Japan's space agency JAXA.  

Hopkins had good advice for unicorn-spotting on Earth. He suggested doing some cloud watching and looking for unicorn shapes in the sky. 

While the astronauts haven't seen any mythical horned horses galloping about in the galaxy, the Hubble Space Telescope managed to catch quite a view of the M20 star-forming Trifid Nebula back in 2017. It doesn't take much imagination to see a unicorn-like shape emerging like a dream from the cloud of gas and dust.

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