Perfect Crystals

iss060e015022 (7/28/2019) — NASA astronaut Nick Hague is shown holding the Perfect Crystals investigation samples within Styrofoam containers in Node 3 aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Growth of Large, Perfect Protein Crystals for Neutron Crystallography (Perfect Crystals) crystallizes human manganese superoxide dismutase in order to analyze its shape. This sheds light on how the antioxidant protein helps protect the human body from oxidizing radiation and oxides created as a byproduct of metabolism.