For the first time, scientists have grown plants in the soil from the moon, collected by NASA astronauts from Apollo.
The researchers had no idea if anything would grow into the raw lunar dirt, and they wanted to see if it could be used to grow food by a new generation of lunar researchers. The results stunned them.
“Sacred cow. Plants actually grow into lunar things. Are you kidding?” said Robert Firl of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida.
Ferll and his colleagues planted cress in lunar soil returned by Neil Armstrong of Apollo 11 and Buzz Aldrin and other lunar rovers years ago, and the seeds sprouted.
The downside was that after the first week, the roughness and other properties of the lunar soil loaded the small flowering weeds so much that they grew slower than seedlings planted in fake lunar dirt from Earth.
Most of the moon plants turned out to be stunted. The results were published Thursday in Communications Biology.
The longer the soil was exposed to punitive cosmic radiation and the sun’s wind on the moon, the worse the plants looked.
Anna-Lisa Paul, left, and Rob Firl, scientists at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida, work with lunar soils at their lab in Gainesville, Florida. Photo: Tyler Jones / AP
The Apollo 11 samples – exposed to the elements several billion years longer due to the older surface of the lunar Sea of Tranquility – were the least favorable for growth, scientists say.
“It’s a big step forward to understand that you can grow plants,” said Simon Gilroy, a space plant biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who had no role in the study. “The real next step is to go and do it on the surface of the moon.
The lunar dirt is full of small glass fragments of micrometeorite impacts that have landed everywhere in Apollo’s lunar spacecraft and worn out the spacecraft’s spacesuits.
One solution may be to use younger geological spots on the moon, such as lava flows, to dig up the soil for planting. The environment can also be adjusted by changing the food mixture or adjusting the artificial lighting.
Only 842 pounds of moon rocks and earth were returned by six Apollo crews and most were locked.
NASA finally distributed 12 grams to researchers at the University of Florida early last year, and the long-awaited planting took place in a laboratory last May.
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