Scientists have grown plants on the soil from the moon. This is the first time in human history and a milestone in the exploration of the Moon and space.
In a new paper published in the journal Communications Biology, researchers at the University of Florida have shown that plants can successfully sprout and grow in lunar soil. Their study also investigated how plants react biologically to lunar soil (also known as lunar regolith). This is fundamentally different from the soil found on Earth.
This task is the first step towards a day of growing plants for food and oxygen during lunar or space missions. More soon, this study will be done when the Artemis program plans to bring humans back to the moon.
“Artemis needs a better understanding of how to grow plants in space,” said one of the authors of the study and a prominent professor of horticultural science at the University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF / IFAS). One Robfell says.
Even in the early days of lunar exploration, plants played an important role, says Anna-Lisa Paul, one of the authors of this study and a professor of horticultural science at UF / IFAS.
“Plants helped ensure that soil samples brought back from the moon were free of terrestrial-harmful pathogens and other unknown components, but those plants were sprinkled with lunar regoliths. I wasn’t actually raised in it, “Paul said.
Paul and Fel are internationally recognized experts in the study of plants in space. Through the University of Florida Space Plant Institute, they have conducted experiments on the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and suborbital flight.
“For longer space missions in the future, we may use the moon as a hub or launch pad. It makes sense to want to use the soil that is already there to grow plants,” Fel said. rice field. “So what happens when you grow plants in the lunar soil? This is completely different from the experience of plant evolution. What do plants do in the lunar greenhouse? Can you get a lunar farmer? ? “
To answer these questions, Fel and Paul designed a seemingly simple experiment. Seeds are planted in the lunar soil, water, nutrients and light are added and the results are recorded.
Complexity: Scientists had only 12 grams (only a few cups) of lunar soil to perform this experiment. With a loan from NASA, this soil was collected during the Apollo 11, 12, and 17 lunar missions. Paul and Fel have applied for the opportunity to work with the lunar regolith three times in 11 years.
The low amount of soil meant that Paul and Fel had to design small, carefully choreographed experiments, not to mention their immense historical and scientific significance. .. To grow their little moon garden, researchers used thimble-sized wells on plastic plates, usually used to culture cells. Each well functioned as a pot. Once they filled each “pot” with about 1 gram of lunar soil, scientists moistened the soil with a nutrient solution and added some seeds from Arabidopsis plants.
Arabidopsis is widely used in plant science because its genetic code is fully mapped. By growing Arabidopsis in lunar soil, researchers gained more insight into how soil affected plants, down to the level of gene expression.
As a point of comparison, the researchers also planted Arabidopsis in JSC-1A. It is a terrestrial material that mimics the actual lunar soil, simulating Martian soil and terrestrial soil from extreme environments. Plants grown in these non-moon soils were the control group for the experiment.
Prior to the experiment, researchers were uncertain whether the seeds planted in the lunar soil would sprout. But almost all of them did.
“We were surprised. We didn’t expect it,” Paul said. “It taught us that the lunar soil did not interfere with the hormones and signals involved in plant germination.”
However, over time, researchers have observed differences between plants grown in lunar soil and controls. For example, some of the plants that grow on lunar soil were smaller, slower to grow, and varied in size than their counterparts.
All of these were physical signs that the plants were working to cope with the chemical and structural composition of the lunar soil, Paul explained. This was further confirmed when researchers analyzed gene expression patterns in plants.
“At the genetic level, we speculate that plants perceive the lunar soil environment as stressful, as they have elicited tools commonly used to deal with stressors such as salt, metals and oxidative stress. You can, “Paul said. “Ultimately, I would like to use gene expression data to help work on ways to improve stress response to levels where plants, especially crops, can grow in lunar soil with little impact on health. . “
How plants react to lunar soil may be related to where the soil was collected, with Fel, who collaborated with Stephen Erald, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Florida. Paul said.
For example, researchers have found that the plants with the most signs of stress are those grown on what lunar geologists call mature lunar soil. These mature soils are more cosmic wind-exposed soils that change composition. On the other hand, plants grown in relatively less mature soils worked better.
Growing plants on the lunar soil can change the soil itself, Elald said.
“The moon is a very, very dry place. How do the minerals in the moon’s soil react to growing plants with water and nutrients? With the addition of water, mineral science is more kind to plants. Will it be? “Erald said.
Follow-up surveys are built on these questions and more. So far, scientists are celebrating the first step in growing plants on the moon.
“We’ve been asking this question for years, so we wanted to do this experiment. Will the plants grow on the lunar soil,” Fel said. “The answer is yes, after all.”
Support and funding for this work was provided by NASA’s Department of Biophysical Sciences, NASA’s Department of Space Materials Research and Exploration Science, NASA’s grant NNX14AT24G, NASA’s grant 80NSSC19K0752, and the University of Florida.
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