[HN Gopher] Plants have been grown in lunar soil for the first t...
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       Plants have been grown in lunar soil for the first time ever
        
       Author : lelf
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2022-05-13 17:29 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
        
       | 11235813213455 wrote:
       | Not very surprising, as long as you add the missing piece which
       | is water
        
         | danparsonson wrote:
         | I disagree - Terran soil is much more than just rock dust and
         | water.
        
           | ghostpepper wrote:
           | They added the required nutrients as well. I don't mean to
           | downplay the importance of basic science but what does this
           | really prove?
        
             | wgj wrote:
             | The article answers that several different ways.
        
             | nousermane wrote:
             | Whole experiment is plain absurd. From https://en.wikipedia
             | .org/wiki/Lunar_soil#Mineralogy_and_comp...
             | 
             | > There are two profound differences in the chemistry of
             | lunar regolith and dirt from terrestrial materials. The
             | first is that the Moon is very dry. As a result, those
             | minerals with water as part of their structure (mineral
             | hydration) such as clay, mica, and amphiboles are absent
             | from the Moon's surface.
             | 
             | > The second difference is that lunar regolith and crust
             | are chemically reduced, rather than being significantly
             | oxidized like the Earth's crust.
             | 
             | They added water and oxygen. Which undoes both of above. So
             | they ended up with more or less aseptic earth dirt. And
             | yeah, plants grow in that, duh.
        
       | hprotagonist wrote:
       | ... and they _hate_ it!
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | Two other threads:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31374720 (29 comments)
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31358609 (69 comments)
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-14 23:00 UTC)