Scientists have successfully grown plants in lunar soil for the first time in history. The lands used were lands obtained during the three Apollo missions that took place between 1960 and 1970.
While the foundations for humanity’s colonization in space continue to be laid rapidly, today, there are people who can help in this regard. an extremely important development it happened. The lunar soil brought to Earth by astronauts who went to the Moon and took soil samples during NASA’s Apollo missions managed to become a source of life for plants.
The work, which began in 2021, led by space biologist and geneticist Anna Lisa Paul from the University of Florida, was successful. Scientists have been living in the lunar soil, which has not allowed any life for billions of years. managed to grow small plants. The research indicates that in the future, astronauts will be able to farm their own greenhouses on the Moon.
Added nutrients for plants to the soil:
According to the study published in Nature, the soils used in the study were On the Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 missions acquired lands. Scientists believe that these soils have no minerals or ions, unlike the soils on our Earth. adding food and water made.
- Left to right Anna-Lisa Paul, Rob Ferl
After planting, the mouse ear cress plant (arabidopsis thalian) successfully greened in the lunar soil. On the other hand, the results obtained in the study show that growing plants in the lunar soil it’s pretty tough also showed. the plants in the lunar soil slow to developmany of stress morphologies shown has been reported. However, all plants grown showed ionic stresses similar to the reaction of plants in Earth’s soil to salt, metal and reactive oxygen.
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