Sloth Steals Spotlight After Making A Short Cameo During A Rocket Launch To Jupiter
The sloth was even named Jerry.
By Khadijah Amir — 18 Apr 2023, 01:55 PM
A launch event of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission had a different turn of events when a sloth stole the spotlight during its livestream
According to European Space Agency (ESA), the mission launched from French Guiana in South America at 2.15pm CEST, on 14 April.
JUICE was launched to discover the ocean environments below the surface of the super planet's icy moons, picking up where previous Jupiter missions left off. The event was livestreamed on the ESA's Facebook and YouTube pages.
The livestream, however, was interrupted by a different star: a lone sloth staring straight into the camera at the launchpad.
The sloth was named Gérard, or Jerry, by viewers who were stunned to catch the adorable cameo on screen
Dr Nadia Drake from Quanta Magazine shared the adorable encounter on the ESA's Facebook page.
"Aside from the actual launch, this guy is definitely the star of ESA's JUICE telecast," she said. She also added on her Twitter post that the shot was "the most gratuitous sloth cameo" she's ever seen.
Viewers even nicknamed the fuzzy animal Gérald, or Jerry for short. Jerry even has his own hashtags made for him by the agency, such as #gojerry and #ohhurryupjerry.
Jerry, as far as the Internet is concerned, is alive and well despite being in the vicinity of the rocket launch. Netizens, however, are still very curious as to how he ended up there in the first place.
This is not the first time animals were caught in the act during space launches. Back in 2013, an image of the 'Space Toad' went viral, showing a small frog mid-leap captured during NASA's LADEE rocket launch. Another viral incident involved the 'Space Bat' in 2009, where a bat was found on the fuel tanks of another NASA rocket preparing to launch.
