Moon soil used to grow plants for first time in breakthrough test
Scientists have grown plants in lunar soil for the first time, an important step towards making long-term stays on the moon possible.
Researchers used small samples of dust collected during the 1969-1972 Apollo missions to grow a type of cress.
Much to their surprise, the seeds sprouted after two days.
“I can’t tell you how astonished we were,” said Anna-Lisa Paul, a University of Florida professor who co-authored a paper on the findings.
“Every plant – whether in a lunar sample or in a control – looked the same up until about day six.”
After that, differences emerged. The plants grown in moon soil started to show stress, developed more slowly and ended up stunted.
But those involved say it is a breakthrough – and one that has earthly implications.
“This research is critical to Nasa’s long-term human exploration goals as we’ll need to use resources found on the Moon and Mars to develop food sources for future astronauts living and operating in deep space,” said Nasa chief Bill Nelson.
“This fundamental plant growth research is also a key example of how Nasa is working to unlock agricultural innovations that could help us understand how plants might overcome stressful conditions in food-scarce areas here on Earth.”
One challenge for researchers is that there simply is not much lunar soil to experiment with. Over a three-year period from 1969, Nasa astronauts brought back 382kg (842lb) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface.
The University of Florida team were given just 1g of soil per plant for the experiment from the samples, which have been kept locked away for decades.
Nasa plans to land humans on the moon for the first time since 1972 in a mission scheduled for 2025.
See more here: bbc.co.uk
Header image: UF/IFAS
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Alan
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Who in their right mind wants a long stay on the moon or Mars?
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TheQuieterOne
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Yeah, we’re not going to be growing plants on the moon. Christ.
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Mark Tapley
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More propaganda from the NASA money laundering agency. Years ago there were a bunch of “moon rocks” supposedly brought back by the ass tronouts and given to a museum in one of the nordic countries (forget which one) and put on display. After finally doing analysis on the rocks, it was discovered to be the usual NASA fakery like the Apollo program, space shuttle (with the dead ass tronouts, fake space station and helicopter (flying in the practically zero atmosphere) on Mars:
https://aplanetruth.info/theyre-alive-challenger-crew-found-alive-and-well-30-years-since-the-disaster/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/obNWzGugdzO3/
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MC
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Any neutral medium with the right fertilizer will grow plants. Why are they so surprised? In England tomatoes are grown in rock wool.
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Doug Harrison
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My reaction to this story is as exactly the same as yours, MC.
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