Photos: China Space News
Can China plant vegetables on the moon? What can we plant? The questions sparked heated discussions online over the weekend, after Chang’e 5 returned to Earth on Thursday with 1,731 grams of evidence from the moon.
But science could have disappointed them. “Unlike organic soil on earth, the soil on the moon does not contain organic nutrients and is very dry, which is not suitable for growing vegetables or potatoes,” Zhu Guangquan, a CCTV anchor, said in a statement. video posted on Sina CCTV’s Weibo account on Saturday, quoting scientists.
Chinese netizens were very interested in growing vegetables on the moon. The topic “The lunar land really can’t grow vegetables” won more than 63.3 million views on Sina Weibo and was discussed more than 17,000 times in the press.
There were more than 8,100 comments below the video. “The Chinese really like the idea of growing vegetables throughout history,” joked a Sina Weibo user @ Siberian-shuaihe.
Another Weibo user commented: “Yuan Longping’s eyes lit up: there is no place where rice can’t grow!” Yuan, a world-renowned agronomist known for developing the first strains of hybrid rice, is nicknamed the “father of hybrid rice.”
However, although the soil on the moon cannot grow vegetables, it can be used in other ways. The long-term solar wind has injected a large amount of helium-3 into the lunar soil, which can be used as clean energy and generating electricity by thermonuclear fusion, according to the video posted by CCTV.
The National Space Administration of China (CNSA) held a monthly sample handover ceremony in Beijing on Saturday morning, where the sample was handed over to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The monthly samples will be divided into three parts for different purposes, said CNSA Deputy Chief Wu Yanhua. The laboratories for scientific research will receive some, while the other two will be exhibited in national museums for public education and will be shared with the international community in accordance with the monthly regulations on data management. They could even be offered as special gifts to countries working closely with China on aerospace issues.
A Weibo user also boldly assumed, “If we can’t grow vegetables on the moon, how about going to Mars and getting a soil sample from there for study?”
China launched the country’s first Mars probe, codenamed Tianwen-1, on July 23, and has now traveled 370 million kilometers and reached more than 100 million kilometers from Earth, according to a CNSA update last week.
Chinese soldiers have successfully grown vegetables in the sand on Yongxing Island in the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea. In addition, the Chinese scientific expedition team also grew vegetables in Antarctica.
Global Times