Plants Grown in Moon Soil
A team of scientists at the University of Florida have recently made an amazing discovery that proved lunar regolith a suitable substance to grow arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress.
Tyler Jones, UF/IFAS
A team of scientists at the University of Florida have recently made an amazing discovery that proved lunar regolith a suitable substance to grow arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress. Thale cress is frequently used in plant studies as it has a small genome and is fairly easy to mutagenize. A mutagen is a property that can fully change the genetics of something, and causes genetic mutation. Using thale cress was very beneficial for a project like this because depending on the reaction to the lunar regolith, the scientists would be able to mutagenize the plant to make it grow how they want it to.
The experiment was conducted with volcanic ash pitted against the soil from the moon. Although the sprouts did indeed show up from the moon soil, the growth was visibly more stunted than the plants in volcanic ash. There was also some sort of red pigmentation that showed up on some of the leaves. As the experiment went on, the plants showed many different stress signals similar to those they would show when exposed to substances like salts and metals.
Based on these findings, botanists and genetic engineers can manipulate either the soil or the plants to have a better chance of survival or to grow better. Either way, the fact that the little plants were able in the soil is a huge accomplishment that will lead to many discoveries.
RELATED STORIES:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/biological-physical/scientists-grow-plants-in-soil-from-the-moon
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14536094/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/world/plants-lunar-soil-scn/index.html
https://www.space.com/plants-grown-lunar-soil-apollo-missions
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