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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 samples from the moon.
But science might have let them down. “Unlike organic soil on earth, soil on the moon contains no organic nutrients and is very dry, which is not suitable for growing vegetables or potatoes,” said Zhu Guangquan, CCTV presenter, through a video posted in Sina. CCTV’s Weibo account on Saturday, citing scientists.
Chinese netizens have been very interested in growing vegetables on the moon. The topic “The lunar soil can’t really grow vegetables” earns more than 63.3 million views on Sina Weibo and was discussed more than 17,000 times as of press time.
There were more than 8,100 comments below the video. “The Chinese really cling to the idea of growing vegetables throughout history,” joked a Sina Weibo user @ Siberian-shuaihe.
Another Weibo user commented, “Yuan Longping’s eyes have lit up: there is no place where rice cannot grow!” Yuan, a world-renowned agronomist known for developing the first strains of hybrid rice, is dubbed 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 injected a large amount of helium-3 into the lunar soil, which can be used as clean energy and generate electricity through thermonuclear fusion, according to the video published by CCTV.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) held a lunar sample handover ceremony on Saturday morning in Beijing, where the sample was delivered to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The lunar samples will be divided into three parts for different purposes, said CNSA deputy director Wu Yanhua. Scientific research laboratories will receive some, while the other two will be exhibited in national museums for public education and shared with the international community in accordance with lunar data management regulations. They could even be given as special gifts to countries that work closely with China on aerospace matters.
One Weibo user also boldly assumed: “If we can’t grow vegetables on the moon, how about we go to Mars and get a soil sample from there to study?”
China launched the country’s first Mars probe, codenamed Tianwen-1, on July 23 and has currently traveled 370 million kilometers and reached more than 100 million kilometers from Earth, according to the CNSA update. last week.
Chinese navy soldiers have successfully grown vegetables in the sand on Yongxing Island in the Xisha Islands of the South China Sea. In addition, the Chinese scientific expedition team has also grown vegetables in Antarctica.
Global times
