Overview
- The University of Adelaide study, published Thursday in Communications Biology, found sperm struggled to cross a lab-made cervical channel under a rotating microgravity simulator.
- In mice, about 30% fewer eggs were fertilized after four hours in low gravity, and in pigs fewer embryos reached the blastocyst stage, signaling weaker early development.
- Navigation performance fell by roughly half in space-like conditions, yet a hardier subset of sperm still completed the course, suggesting conception may remain possible though less likely.
- The device simulated about one-tenth of Earth’s gravity, which is below the Moon’s 16% and Mars’s 38%, so the team says results cannot be directly applied to those worlds and more tests are needed across gravity levels.
- The findings arrive as NASA promotes plans for a future Moon base and SpaceX pursues Mars ambitions, adding reproductive viability to the checklist for any long-term off‑Earth settlement.