12 Bottles Of Wine Are Headed Back To Earth After Spending A Year In Space

Cheers! Twelve bottles of French Bordeaux wine are on their way back from the International Space Station after spending a year orbiting the Earth in the name of science. 

The bottles, plus hundreds of grapevine snippets, were sent above the stratosphere for a study to see how space could alter the sedimentation and bubbles.

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Space Cargo Unlimited, the company behind the experiment, wanted the wine to age for a year up in space.

So, they carefully packaged each bottle in a steel cylinder — to prevent breakage — and launched them into space where they remained corked and sealed aboard the space station's orbiting lab. 

Today, the bottles hitched a ride back to Earth on SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule and are expected to splash down into the Gulf of Mexico tonight. 

Once back on Earth, the bottles won't be opened until the end of February when the company holds an out-of-this-world wine tasting with some of France’s top connoisseurs.

Months of chemical testing will follow and researchers are over the moon about what they might find. 

We're just as curious, but unfortunately, only a lucky few people will be able to taste the space wine... for now.