Hungary
January 16, 2024
How do certain plants grow in chambers with a controlled environment and illumination if the soil in which they are planted contains a simulant representing different regions of Mars and the Moon? This is what Dr György Barkó, Senior Research Fellow, is experimenting with two students in the laboratory of the Technical Institute of the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
The main aim of the unique Hungarian research using simulant is to see if there is any hope at all for life to develop in the barren soil of the Moon or Mars, and if so, what methods can be used to promote plant growth there.
While there are large amounts of soil samples from the Moon, they are a very valuable commodity that cannot be used for all research. And from other places, such as Mars, there are no samples that have ever been sent to Earth to work with or experiment with. Consequently, for studies that require a lot of lunar or Martian dust, imitations of the environment, so-called simulants, are used that are close to the original in terms of composition and grain size. These include soils from volcanic areas, in which minerals are artificially mixed to resemble as closely as possible the soils of the region to be represented. Thanks to human or robotic missions to the Moon and Mars, researchers have previously acquired enough information to be able to create not only a general simulant, but also a precise imitation of a geological region.
Of course, none of the plants in the experimental chamber live in completely extraterrestrial conditions. Not only because the contents of the pots are produced from a mixture of terrestrial soil and simulant, but also because the typical conditions of space - extreme temperatures, light conditions, atmospheric pressure different from Earth's and radiation bombarding the surface - are not yet imitated in the experiment. The current research is specifically aimed at obtaining soil data, so MATE researchers will monitor and measure plant responses to different soil combinations.
So the experiment on MATE is not yet trying to create potential food ingredients that can later be used to make a tasty space menu, but to observe the functioning of so-called indicator plants. These biological indicator plants are simple, generally undemanding species that can be used to monitor environmental influences and changes and to infer the influence of environmental factors.
According to experts, there is little chance that the long, lush potato fields of Mars will be a welcome sight for future generations of astronauts, and there are several reasons why. On the one hand, the importance of radiation protection means that human and plant habitats can only be built indoors, even in tunnels dug into the sides of mountains, where artificial lighting control will be needed. On the other hand, experience has shown that plants planted in pure lunar dust or Martian regolith (or simulant) will die immediately. For these reasons, the ideal proportions for each species are experimented with by adding the nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium) missing from the soil outside the soil instead of 100 % regolith. This may take a different form during space missions, but at the moment, mixing with terrestrial soil is being used in the lab, where it is clear that some plants tolerate and even thrive on very high levels of lunar dust.
Of the plants in the well-controlled conditions of the chamber, with LED lighting and irrigation, amber has so far proved to be one of the most viable, alongside mustard, which may not seem like good news for astronauts' food supply, but is in fact a promising discovery. In addition to advancing space exploration, these results will also help agricultural work on Earth, as the plants' responses to changes in soil quality can be applied to terrestrial conditions. The data can also be useful for farming in less suitable areas, and can provide key knowledge for managing production conditions in the face of climate change and soil nutrient depletion.
Topics
Species
