The astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived on Earth last Tuesday, March 18, after being stranded in space for almost nine months due to technical failures in their Starline spacecraft.
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One of the aspects that many noticed were the gray hairs with which they both returned, mainly Sunita. They left with dark hair and returned with a gray tone, almost white in her case, they also looked thinner, weaker, and older.
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Astronauts and possible explanations for their grey hair
The change in hair color tone raises questions about whether it was due to any effect of long time in space, so the New York Post presented the possible causes. The mentioned media states that there are no studies proving that spending a lot of time in space causes gray hair, but that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other experts have asserted that there can indeed be significant changes in the body.
The Post recalled the ‘Age’ study, about the effects of space on the human body, in which NASA expressed: “Imagine if all your physiological changes were hyper-accelerated so that you went through life cycles in weeks instead of decades... Your beard could grow overnight or your hair could start graying in a matter of days, or maybe menopause would come knocking on the next weekend.”
NASA added: "This may seem far-fetched, but space flights cause significant physiological changes including accelerated loss of muscle and bone density, and dysfunction of the immune system that parallels the effects of natural aging here on Earth“.
A study in 2016 determined that time in space affects the human hair follicle, impacting hair growth. Other studies have confirmed that in space, people age faster, and this is reflected in the appearance of their skin and hair, although there is no certainty about the change in color.
Despite all the scientific explanations, people at home can’t stop joking about the gray hair the astronauts came back with after being stranded in space, and claim that surely, there is no hair dye or makeup in space.