China Grows Cotton Plant On Far Side Of The Moon

Image Courtesy of China National Space Administration

Cotton seeds taken to the moon on the Chang’e-4 mission have begun to sprout, according to the China National Space Administration.

The sprouts mark the first time biological matter has been grown on the moon, though plants have been grown on the International Space Station.

Around the world, US and European space agencies, as well as commercial concerns, are also planning to send plant matter to the Moon, to explore the possibilities of harnessing space technology and bio-culture.

The leader of the experiment is Xie Gengxin of the advanced Technology Research Institute at Chongqing University.

While there will be no scientific papers published from the experiment, Xie hopes to build on this work.

Xie and his team are looking ahead to the next Moon mission, when they hope to send more lifeforms there. If the mission allows for a larger payload, they may send more complex life forms, though they haven't specified what they'll be.

As it arrived in early January, Chang'e-4 carried biological growth experiment that aimed to see to help scientists understand how plants could survive on the lunar environment. The spacecraft had six organisms kept in a 5.7-pound mini-biosphere called the Lunar Micro Ecosystem (LME).

The LME is a sealed, cylindrical container that maintained the organisms in Earth-like conditions. However, they were exposed to microgravity and lunar radiation during the experiments. 

The LME was unheated, so after the first lunar day – about 14 Earth days – the cotton sprout died when the temperatures plunged to minus 190 Celsius (-310 F.) But the experiment continued, to test the longevity of the LME itself.

China has already planned Chang'e-6, a sample return mission to the Moon, sometime in the mid-2020s. In 2018 China invited international partners to become involved in an additional 10 kg. of scientific payload for the mission.

Chang'e-6 is a backup mission to Chang'e-5, which is scheduled to be China's first sample-return mission.