NASA astronauts finally solve the mystery of the missing tomato lost in space for months

A mystery in space has been solved after NASA astronauts managed to locate a missing tomato - but not before they'd laid the blame on a hungry colleague.

The tomato in question went missing on the International Space Station (ISS) after being harvested on board by astronaut Frank Rubio.

"Our good friend Frank Rubio, who headed home [already], has been blamed for quite a while for eating the tomato.

"But we can exonerate him. We found the tomato," NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli said during a livestreamed event on December 6 that celebrated the ISS' 25th anniversary.

The Red Robin dwarf tomato was a part of the final harvest for a space experiment that Rubio had been conducting.

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But one of the fruits of his labor managed to escape him in the space station before disappearing some eight months ago.

The missing tomato evaded capture, with many of his fellow astronauts believing it was devoured by a ravenous Rubio.

"I spent so many hours looking for that thing," Rubio joked during a previous livestream from earlier this year.

"I'm sure the desiccated tomato will show up at some point and vindicate me, years in the future."

"The reality of the problem, you know — the humidity up there is like 17 percent," Rubio added.

It's probably desiccated to the point where you couldn't tell what it was, and somebody just threw away the bag.

"Hopefully somebody will find it someday: a little, shriveled thing."

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