Researchers have grown plants in soil from the Moon

Scientists at the University of Florida have succeeded in growing a plant in soil brought back from the Moon.

Great scientific progress report to the tiny plants that sprouted in the soil brought back from the Moon. Anna-Lisa Paul and Rob Ferl, two researchers at the University of Florida's Institute of Agriculture, asked NASA for samples of soil brought back by the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972 to grow the world's first plants in soil from an alien planet.

The scientists placed just one gram per acre of soil, or regolith, on thimble-sized plastic plates and planted the seeds of cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) in this, along with a little nutrient solution. A minor difficulty was that there was little regolith available, so samples had to be handled very carefully. The researchers' request has been rejected several times by NASA, precisely because there is currently very little lunar soil available to scientists.

Although the scientists were not sure of the success of the research, almost all the seeds planted in the regolith eventually sprouted. The result is now of particular importance because the NASA  The ultimate goal of the Artemis programme is to put a man on the Moon again. The first human landing on the Moon has been postponed several times, and the original plan was for the first US astronaut (the "first woman and the next man") to land on the Moon in 2024, but this looks set to be years away. The target has failed on several counts, one of which is the development of a suitable spacesuit, which NASA would now design to be suitable for future missions to Mars