Hey space fans! 🚀 On December 27, 2025, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) revealed the names of four adventurous mice that spent time aboard the Chinese space station. Say hello to Wangtian (望天 – 'gaze at the sky'), Lanyue (览月 – 'reach for the moon'), Zhuiyun (追云 – 'chase the clouds') and Zhumeng (逐梦 – 'follow the dream')! 🐭✨
Back on October 31, these four lucky rodents (IDs 6, 98, 154 and 186) were picked from a pool of 48 and rocketed to low Earth orbit aboard the Shenzhou-21 crewed spacecraft. They floated around in their cozy habitat while scientists studied how microgravity affects mammalian physiology and behavior—think stress response, bone density and more.
After their cosmic adventure, the mice touched down with the Shenzhou-20 crew on November 14. Since then, experts at the Institute of Zoology have kicked off experiments to decode how space changes brains and bodies. 🧬🔬
The naming was crowdsourced: Xinhua News Agency teamed up with CAS to launch an online campaign inviting the public to submit and vote on name ideas. The winners were unveiled at a month-long event called 'Flying Mice' at the National Zoological Museum of China in Beijing, running through late January 2026. Visitors can check out fun cartoon illustrations of the mice and learn about the cutting-edge biology experiments driving China’s space ambitions. 🎨👩🔬
For young space enthusiasts from Seoul to Singapore, this story shows how citizen science and social media are shaping the future of space exploration—and on a smaller scale, how even the tiniest astronauts are making big leaps for science! 🌏💫
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
