April 12, 2014

Image Caption: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (left), Expedition 26 commander, is reunited with his twin brother, Mark Kelly on March 17, 2011, following a flight back to Ellington Field, Houston from Kustanay, Kazakhstan. Scott Kelly landed in Kazakhstan on March 16 with his Russian crewmates in the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft after 159 days in space, 157 days on the International Space Station. Mark Kelly is in the final weeks of training as commander of the final flight of Endeavour, STS-134, that will spend more than a week docked to the ISS. Endeavour is targeted for launch on April 19. Credit: NASA

[Watch The Video: NASA To Study Twins On Earth And In Space ]

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

The worlds only twin astronauts will take center stage in an upcoming NASA experiment that will analyze whether or not identical siblings remain the same biologically if one travels to outer space while the other remains on Earth.

According to the US space agency, astronaut Scott Kelly will be participating in a one-year mission to the International Space Station starting in March 2015. His mission is designed to analyze the impact of long-term space flight on the human body but theres more to it than that.

Like his twin brother Scott, Mark Kelly was also an astronaut before he retired. While Scott Kelly spends 12 months orbiting the Earth at speeds of approximately 17,000mph, his brother will remain with his feet firmly planted on terra firma. Basically, Scott with serve as a test subject, while Mark will stay behind as a control.

We will be taking samples and making measurements of the twins before, during, and after the one-year mission, Craig Kundrot of the NASA Human Research Program at Johnson Space Center explained in a statement. For the first time, well be able two individuals who are genetically identical.

The experiment finds its origins in Einsteins Twin Paradox, in which the theory of relatively suggests that a twin traveling on a high-speed rocket to the stars would actually return from his or her voyage younger than the sibling that remains on Earth. However, the NASA experiment will not analyze the flow of time, but will investigate the twins genetics, biochemistry, eyesight, cognitive ability and more.

Each proposal is fascinating and could be a feature-length story of its own, said Kundrot. We already know that the human immune system changes in space. Its not as strong as it is on the ground. In one of the experiments, Mark and Scott will be given identical flu vaccines, and we will study how their immune systems react.

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NASA To Study If Space Travel Makes Twins Biologically Different