As part of an ongoing effort to study samples from space, Apollo astronauts previously collected samples of lunar surface material, known as regolith, and brought them back to Earth
NASA says that now, 50 years later, researchers used three of those samples to grow plants for the first time successfully.
Ferl and Horticultural scientists Anna-Lisa Paul are trailblazers in growing plants in space. They have sent plant experiments to space on the space shuttle, the International Space Station, and Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceflights. The answer to the University of Florida scientists’ first question was a resounding ‘yes.’ Plants can grow in the moon’s soil.
"What’s more, growing plants is the kind of thing we’ll study when we go. So, these studies on the ground lay the path to expand that research by the next humans on the moon," Bleacher said.The team of scientists used samples from Apollo 11, 12 and 17. It took 10 years of requests for soil before the UF research team got its sample.
NASA's Lunar Sample Curation team gave the Space Plants Lab even more than they asked for to further their research. "We were quite amazed to see that every seed germinated. They all germinated. Whether you were on lunar regolith or on this simulant," Paul said. "Everybody was beautiful and green and tiny, but they were all growing. So that first shock of, 'Wow, there's nothing impeding the germination.'"
The plants were said to have grown more slowly and had stunted roots. Some even had stunted leaves and sported reddish pigmentation.After researchers studied the proteins within the plants, they found patterns of genes were under stress and reacted the way they’d seen when grown in harsh environments.
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