China’s first ever plant grown on moon dies

Just days ago, news swept away the world when China’s space program announced that for the first time ever, its Moon lander has sprouted a plant on the lunar surface. However, due to temperature, the plant died shortly after.

The news about China sprouting a cotton plant on the far side of the Moon marked has a big revolution in the field of science and technology since it was the first time in the world someone sprouted a plant on the lunar surface.

The team developed a sealed biosphere habitat stocked with seeds, fruit fly eggs and yeasts in hope of creating a small eco-system. It also consisted of potatoes and oilseed rape seeds, however the cotton seed was the sole one to sprout.

China pulls off first ever, historic spacecraft landing on far side of moon

However, soon after the lead scientist behind the lunar plant experiment Xie Gengxin told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that the cotton sprouts would not survive sundown on the Moon, which led the temperature of the container to fall as low as -170°C.

“Life in the canister would not survive the lunar night,” Gengxin said. For comparison, the moon’s nighttime periods lasts for about two Earth weeks and the temperatures plummet greatly during the night.

He also mentioned that other seeds in the grow container, including potatoes and cabbage too failed to sprout. Now since the experiment has ended, Gengxin said that the organic matter will decompose in its container.

Earlier this month China made history by landing its Chang’e 4 mission to the far side of the moon, something that has never been achieved before. Now once again it made history by sprouting the first seed on the moon, though for a short time, wrote CNET.