"So, what happens when you grow plants in lunar soil, something that is totally outside of a plant's evolutionary experience? And the plants took longer to grow expanded leaves than the Arabidopsis plants grown in volcanic ash. Some of the lunar soil plants showed reddish black pigments in their leaves, an outward sign of stress. By day 16, there were clear physical differences between plants grown in the volcanic ash (left) compared with those grown in the lunar soil (right). "The idea of bringing lunar soil into a lunar greenhouse is the stuff of exploration dreams."

Source: CNN May 13, 2022 03:23 UTC