Plants grown in moon soil.

[glazbagun]

Is this really a surprise? I remember as a kid growing Cress on tissue paper. Presumably there's more to it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-614...

[Aunty Pasty]

I don't see why this is anything more special than germinating a seed in a sand substrate. The seeds germinate and then use it's internal reserves to start of with whilst its roots find nutrition in the soil. Unsurprisingly it doesn't find any in moon soil so it ends up stunted.

[mike74]

Also not surprised at all by this when you see some of the incredible situations where plants are able to take root, find nutrients and grow.

What I am curious about is what are the radiation levels of moon 'soil' given it's had billions of years exposure to the sun's radiation with no protection from an atmosphere?

[Simpo Two]

mike74 said:

What I am curious about is what are the radiation levels of moon 'soil' given it's had billions of years exposure to the sun's radiation with no protection from an atmosphere?

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q12968.html

[gl20]

Really was interested to see this story. I’ve bored PHers with this before, but an old family friend of ours was a NASA scientist on the Apollo program and was specifically tasked with trying to grow watercress on the lunar samples while the program was still ongoing. The tests were all unsuccessful. It’s years since I last saw her but wonder what she’d make of this.

[anonymous-user]

As a kid I used to eat space dust. Instead of trying to grow stuff in moon dust, as a starting point surely a more useful experiment would be: (1) How long can space dust alone sustain a human being and (2) Do all the pops and bangs in your mouth as you eat it affect your mental health over a long period?

[Simpo Two]

gl20 said:

Really was interested to see this story. I’ve bored PHers with this before, but an old family friend of ours was a NASA scientist on the Apollo program and was specifically tasked with trying to grow watercress on the lunar samples while the program was still ongoing. The tests were all unsuccessful. It’s years since I last saw her but wonder what she’d make of this.

You have to provide nutrients, either liquid (hydroponics) or as organic matter. Lunar soil isn't soil, it's just ground-up rock.