I'll Grow Marigolds On The Moon, Says Scientist

[Lunomaly Profile Website]

I'll Grow Marigolds On The Moon, Says Scientist

"In what marks an important step towards helping lunar colonists grow their own food, a Ukrainian team, working with the European Space Agency, ESA, has shown that marigolds can grow in crushed rock very like the lunar surface, with no need for plant food."

"The research was presented at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, by Dr Bernard Foing of ESA, director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group, and father of the SMART-1 moon probe, who believes it is an important milestone because it does away with the need to bring bringing nutrients and soil from Earth."

"He has worked with Natasha Kozyrovska and Iryna Zaetz from the Ukranian Academy of Sciences in Kiev, who planted marigolds in crushed anorthosite, a type of rock found on Earth which is very similar to lunar soil, called regolith."

"They did not grow well until the team added different types of bacteria, which made them thrive; the bacteria appeared to leach elements from the rock that the plants needed, such as potassium."

"Even better, bacteria are able to withstand extremely tough conditions, so would be an ideal way to fertilise lunar crops. “That is the new aspect of this work,” says Dr Foing, who presented the study at the EGU meeting, said there was no reason in principle why the same idea could not bear fruit on the Moon itself."

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

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Maybe that explains this organic looking ULO (Unidentified Lunar Object) I found in the Apollo 17 archives?



According to NASA, there is water ice on the Moon and for years now we've been told that comets, asteroids, and meteors may have carried bacteria to our planet, seeding it with life or enhancing (complicating?) the ecosystem that was already in the making. If it landed here, it's landed on the Moon - although it may all be in a state of "cryogenic" sleep.

...the last I checked, "tumbleweed" is actually Russian Thistle... but who knows! Maybe it's Lunar Thistle?