After US scientists succeeded in growing plants on lunar soil brought back by the Apollo missions last May, Australian researchers now plan to do the same, but directly on the Moon’s surface.
A group of scientists from the Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Growing plants on the moon by 2025 In a new mission, they announced that they could help pave the way for a future colony.
Brett Williams, a plant biologist from the aforementioned university, The seeds would be carried by the Bereshit 2 spacecraft.An Israeli special lunar mission scheduled for three years from now.
words After landing, the seeds would spread in a closed room and be viewed from Earth. to detect signs of germination and growth.
Plants will be selected for their vigor to cope with harsh conditions and their ability to germinate quickly, he added.
One possible option is the so-called Australian “resurrection grass”, which can survive without water while dormant.
“The project is the first step towards growing plants for the production of food, medicine, and oxygen that are crucial to establishing human life on the Moon,” the researchers said in a statement. Said.
Caitlin Byrt, associate professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, explained that the research is also about ensuring food security in the face of uncertainty caused by climate change.
“If you can create a system for growing plants on the Moon, then you can create a system for growing food in the harshest environments on Earth.”Byrt said in a statement.
The Lunaria One organization runs the project, which includes scientists from Australia and Israel.
A recent moon planting precedent
It’s not the first time crops have been tried on lunar land. For the first time in history, scientists from the University of Florida (USA) last May He succeeded in growing plants in the lunar soil brought to Earth by the Apollo missions, A milestone that opens the door to significant advances in agricultural experimentation outside of our planet.
In a paper published in the journal Communications Biology, the researchers showed that: plants can successfully sprout and grow in lunar soil. The study details how plants biologically respond to soil on the Moon, also known as lunar regolith, which is radically different from soil found on Earth.
This work is the first step towards growing plants for food and oxygen one day on the Moon. or during space missions. More urgently, this research comes with the Artemis program planning to return humans to the Moon.
“Artemis will require a better understanding of growing plants in space,” said Rob Ferl, one of the study’s authors and distinguished professor of horticultural sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
Paul and Ferl are internationally recognized experts in the study of plants in space. They sent experiments on space shuttles, the International Space Station, and suborbital flights through UF’s Space Facility Laboratory.
“We could use the Moon as a hub or launch pad for longer space missions in the future. It makes sense that we want to use the land that’s already there to grow plants.” Ferl stresses. So what happens when plants are grown in lunar soil, which is completely outside of a plant’s evolutionary experience? What would plants do in the moon greenhouse? Can we have moon farmers?
To begin answering these questions, Ferl and Paul devised a seemingly simple experiment: sow seeds in lunar soil, add water, nutrients, and light, and record the results.
It had only twelve grams of lunar soil
It wasn’t an easy task because the scientists only had 12 grams. -just a few teaspoons- lunar soil to carry out the experiment. Borrowed from NASA, this soil was collected during the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions to the Moon. Paul and Ferl applied three times over 11 years for the opportunity to work with the lunar regolith.
The small amount of soil, aside from its incalculable historical and scientific importance, meant that Paul and Ferl had to devise a carefully designed, small-scale experiment. To cultivate the little moon garden, they used thimble-sized holes in plastic containers normally used for cell growth.
Each well served as a flower pot. Once filled each “pot” containing about one gram of lunar soilThe scientists moistened the soil with a nutrient solution and added a few seeds of the Arabidopsis plant.
Arabidopsis is widely used in plant science as its genetic code has been fully mapped. Growing Arabidopsis in lunar soil has allowed researchers to better understand how soil affects plants down to the level of gene expression.
Before the experiment, the researchers they were unsure whether the seeds planted in the lunar land would sprout. But almost all of them did.
“We were surprised. We didn’t expect that,” says Paul, “which told us that lunar soils don’t disrupt hormones and signals related to plant germination.”
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