China succeeds in growing plant on moon, creates yet another history

Beijing, Jan 15: Farmers in India might still struggle with growing crops on the soil of Planet Earth, but the Chinese seemed to have grown their first plant on the moon already, according to images of the country's government.

While making announcement over the same on Tuesday, January 15, Chinese researchers released images from a probe that showed a tiny plant growing in a small pot inside the spacecraft located hundreds of thousands of kilometres away from our planet.

China made history on January 3 when it landed a probe on the far side of the moon when a Yutu 2 rover or Jade Rabbit 2 touched down in the natural satellite's biggest and oldest impact crater, the South Pole-Aitken Basin.

Besides conducting scientific experiments, the mission named 'Chang'e 4' is also meant to see whether plants could grow in a low-gravity environment and the test appears to have already showed results.

The system started watering the seeds after the prober landed on moon and less than a week later, green shoot already started appearing.

Though plants have been grown in the space earlier, this is the first time it has happened on the moon.

"This (mission) has achieved the first biological experiment on the moon of human history, to sprout the first bud on the desolate moon. And with time moving on, it'll be the first plant with green leaves on the moon," Xie Gengxin, dean of Institute of Advanced Technology at Chongqing University, and the chief designer of the experiment, said in a university blog.