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Giant Leaf For Mankind? China Germinates First Seed on Moon (theguardian.com)

A small green shoot is growing on the moon after a cotton seed germinated onboard a Chinese lunar lander, scientists said. From a report: The sprout has emerged from a lattice-like structure inside a canister after the Chang'e 4 lander touched down earlier this month, according to a series of photos released by the Advanced Technology Research Institute at Chongqing University. "This is the first time humans have done biological growth experiments on the lunar surface," said Xie Gengxin, who led the design of the experiment, on Tuesday. Plants have been grown previously on the International Space Station, but this is the first time a seed has sprouted on the moon. The ability to grow plants in space is seen as crucial for long-term space missions and establishing human outposts elsewhere in the solar system, such as Mars.

5 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Earth soil by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

    It appears it's Earth soil. I found nothing in the article to suggest it's using lunar soil here, which would be the real test. The article should have pointed that out; it's not a trivial admission.

    1. Re:Earth soil by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 4, Informative

      This experiment has been performed with Lunar Soil Simulant (JSC-1) here on earth. Plants were able to grew, poorly, in it directly. Adding organic matter and fertilizer improved growth significantly as expected.

      https://journals.plos.org/plos...

  2. Re:And so? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is the 672 hour lunar day and night which could be an issue for plant growth, the the technology to make a bubble that can support prolong life in a hostile environment like the moon.

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  3. Re:Surprising by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's all in a sealed environment. The idea is to create a viable, self-contained environment with some plants and fruit flies.

    In any case, that boat has probably already sailed as it seems that at least one of the Surveyor probes was contaminated. And you also have to ask if it's worth worrying about, given that we are fairly certain that the Moon is dead and not having to deal with it will make life a lot easier to establish a presence there.

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  4. Re:Surprising by careysub · · Score: 3, Informative

    Zero-G growth experiments are not 1/6-G growth experiments. This has never been done before.

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