Scientists from the University of Florida successfully grew plants in Moon regolith or soil collected from the Moon.
Regolith on the Moon or Mars differs from soil on Earth because it is made up of mainly silicate mineral, that is sometimes toxic, and does not have any organic matter, seeds, roots, bacteria, fungi, worms, air or water.
They used 12 grams of the soil collected during the Apollo 11, 12, and 17 missions between 1969 and 1972 (4 grams from each mission).
The flowering plant, Cress seeds, Arabidopsis thaliana, they planted and watered, germinated normally after just two days.
The research goes to show that soil from the Moon does not have unknown components that would harm plants.
However, the plants in 12 small containers did not do as well as the ones used as control, planted on terrestrial soil from Earth.
The research was led by Professors Robert Ferl and Anna-Lisa Paul.
It was funded by NASA.
Their work was published on 12 May, 2022 in the journal Communications Biology.
photo credit: nasa
