Moon plants
Recently, many media outlets reported that scientists managed to grow plants in real lunar soil collected by the astronauts of the Apollo mission. However, it's too early to dream of a moon salad. A horticulturist from the University of Florida and the author of this experiment, Rob Ferl, lowered observers from heaven to Earth, showing how frail the first space plants turned out to be. The sprouts from the lunar soil turned out to be much smaller than their terrestrial counterparts and had purple pigmentation, indicating stress.
The plant from the experiment is a flowering weed arabidopsis or rhesus Thalia, growing in Europe and Asia. It is highly appreciated because of the simplicity of the genome, which scientists have managed to fully map. Arabidopsis, which easily sprouts through asphalt, it would seem, should not have felt the difference between nutritious earth soil and lunar metal mud. But he felt it.
Moon plants
"Given the conditions on the moon," Ferl comments, "you can't just throw seeds on the surface and make them grow." Of course, it is a big step forward that the seeds were able to germinate at all. However, the results show that we are still far from growing potatoes in the lunar garden.
Moon plants
