Mar 24, 2025 06:39 PM IST
NASA explained astronauts experience loss of bone density due to the absence of a gravitational force.
As NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore go on with their lives after being stranded in space for over nine months, several social media users noted physical changes in their bodies. Some raised concerns about Williams’ ‘deformed’ and ‘extended’ chin. Doctors have now explained why the two look different.
Sunita Williams and Wilmore returned to Earth last week, after a months-long stint at the International Space Station. Their original mission was supposed to last eight days. As soon as Williams landed off the Florida coast, she appeared ‘thinner and exhausted’
Social media users noted changes in her chin. “It’s been a few days since the astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams returned to Earth. But has anyone else noticed there’s nothing or hardly anything being reported about Barry it’s all about Sunita Williams’s health and her ski slope chin?” one person asked on X, a platform formerly known as Twitter.
Responding to such claims, pulmonologist and Air Force veteran Dr Vinay Gupta told MailOnline: “I don’t think people realize that you need gravity to exercise your muscles, and if you don’t have gravity, your muscles have nothing to have resistance against.”
NASA explained astronauts experience loss of bone density due to the absence of a gravitational force. Muscle atrophy is another health issue Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore may have faced.
Dr John Jaquish told MailOnline: “Without gravity, you don’t digest food as well. Compromising your ability to digest food is certainly going to contribute to muscle loss and bone loss on its own.”
Former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao warned about ‘baby feet’. In an interview with NewsNation Prime, he noted that Sunita Williams might experience trouble walking.
“You basically lose the thick part of your skin,” Chiao said.
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