For the first time, scientists have grown plants on the moon's soil collected by NASA's Apollo astronauts.
The researchers had no idea whether anything would grow in the hard dirt of the moon and wanted to see if it could be used by a new generation of lunar explorers to produce food. The results shocked them.
For their experiment, the researchers used only 12 grams (a few teaspoons) of lunar soil collected from different parts of the moon during the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions.
In small thimbal-sized containers, they kept about a gram of soil (called "regolithic") and added water, then the seeds were allowed to grow. They also provide nutrient solution to the plants every day.
The researchers (mustard green) chose to plant plants called arbidopsis thaliana, as it grows easily and most importantly, and has been extensively studied. Its genetic code and response to hostile environments - even in space it grows.
As a control group, seeds were also planted on earth's soil as well as samples imitating the soil sown on the moon and Mars.
Result: After two days, everything, including a lunar sample, erupted.
Anna-Lisa Paul, lead author of the paper, said in a statement, "Each plant looked the same for about six days. "
But then, differences began to appear: the plants in the moon's samples grew more slowly and the roots deteriorated.
After 20 days, scientists collected all plants, and conducted studies on their DNA.
Their analysis showed that the moon plant reacted similarly to plants produced in hostile environments, such as soils with too much salt, or heavy metals.
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