In breakthrough research, scientists have for the first time grown plants in the Moon’s soil brought to Earth 50 years ago. As humans plan to return to the Moon with the US’ Artemis mission and China joins hands with Russia to build a lunar station, the crew living in this faraway world will need food to survive. Farming on the Moon could become a reality sooner rather than later. Scientists have for the first time successfully grown plants in the Moon’s soil. This lunar soil, also called Regolith, was brought to Earth from the Moon by the Apollo-era astronauts. The breakthrough was made by a team of scientists from the University of Florida.
“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. 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,” Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said.
CAN WE GROW PLANTS ON THE MOON ?
Scientists were trying to answer two fundamental questions whether plants can grow in the regolith. And second, how might that one day help humans have an extended stay on the Moon?
The answer to the first question is yes, lunar soil is cultivable. Scientists said that they were not as robust as plants grown in Earth soil, or even as those in the control group grown in a lunar simulant made from volcanic ash, but they did indeed grow.
RESEARCH & EXPERIMENT
For this study, the researchers used samples of lunar soil, called Regolith, taken during Apollo 11, 12 and 17, between 1969 and 1972. In all three samples, they grew a common lab specimen, a small plant called thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana).
For comparison, the scientists also grew the thale cress in a type of soil made from volcanic ash found on Earth, called JSC-1A by NASA, meant to simulate lunar soil, which is powdery and full of abrasive glass fragments.
Scientists used lunar soil brought to Earth by Apollo 11, 12, and 17 missions, with only a gram of regolith allotted for each plant. The team added water and then seeds to the samples. They then put the trays into terrarium boxes in a cleanroom. A nutrient solution was added daily.
They then harvested the plants just after 20 days and studied the RNA. Sequencing the RNA revealed the patterns of genes that were expressed, which showed that the plants were indeed under stress and had reacted the way researchers have seen Arabidopsis respond to growth in other harsh environments.
The team is hopeful that this new breakthrough will open the doors for them to one day harvest crops on the Moon as more and more research is done. The research was published on May 12, 2020 in the journal Communications Biology.
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Read More : Is the Moon Farmable? Yes!!
