ABOVE: A cotton sprout grows in a container of soil on the moon.
CHONGQING UNIVERSITY
Update (January 16, 2019): The cotton sprouts growing on the moon have died. They did not survive lunar night, which can reach -173 °Celsius. Mission planners didn't expect the plants to live, Newsweek reports.
There’s cotton growing on the far side of the moon—the first time plants have sprouted there. On January 3, a lunar lander called Chang’e-4 touched down on the moon, deploying a rover to explore lunar terrain. The lander also carries a container filled with soil and cotton and potato seeds, and the cotton seeds are now sprouting, an image released by the China National Space Administration today (January 15) shows. The image was published on the People’s Daily, China twitter feed, which is run by the country’s state-owned media group.
“Learning about these plants’ growth in a low-gravity environment would allow us ...
