China Is Growing Cotton on the Moon

Images from the country’s Chang’e-4 lunar lander show the first sprouting plants.

Written byAshley Yeager

| 2 min read

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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 ...

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Meet the Author

Ashley Yeager
Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.
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