NASA leapfrogs the rest of the space-surfing competition again! This time with flowers.

Announced by an ecstatic Scott Kelly on Twitter, this news is as sweet as it's pretty. Because the first flower to be ever grown in space has made its debut. Introducing zinnia:

Apart from growing vegetables, astronauts have now succeeded in planting flowers and watching them bloom so bright:

Isn't she a beauty?

The zero-gravity vegetable garden turned into a pop of colour with the edible flower zinnia. It was only last year when Scott Kelly and his co-astronauts celebrated the successful blooming of their space grown veggies - the red romaine lettuce.

NASA

The zinnia flower is native to Southwestern United States. Growing vegetables on-board the International Space Station, using the VEGGIE system is a huge breakthrough for NASA that could prove invaluable for deep space explorations. The flowering of zinnia has been made possible by the VEGGIE system that makes use of red, blue and green LED lights to simulate sunlight.