Tiny plant grown with moon dust

Moon dust collected by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin has been used to grow plants for the first time, opening the way for a new era of “lunar farming”.

The breakthrough could enable astronauts to grow food and produce oxygen in a new age of exploration. Crews, including the first woman, will return to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years via Nasa’s Artemis program as early as 2026.

Lunar dust has spent aeons exposed to cosmic radiation and it was thought that a seed planted in moon soil would fail to germinate.

Researchers filled thimblesized wells with a gram of moon dust, adding water and a solution of nitrogen, potassium, sodium and other nutrients. They planted Arabidopsis thaliana seeds, a weed known as mouse-ear cress, and shoots emerged with green leaves.

“We did not predict that,” said Professor Anna-lisa Paul, co-author of the study in Communications Biology.