The Chang’e 4 lander’s biosphere habitat hosted a short-lived cotton-growing experiment.
There once was a miniature garden growing on the far side of the moon.
The China National Space Agency’s Chang’e 4 lander is exploring the mysterious side of our lunar neighbor that faces away from Earth. It also had some unusual guests on board and — in a first for the moon — one of them sprouted.
Xinhua announced the sprout Tuesday and posted a series of progress images covering the course of nine days and showing a seedling reaching up inside the habitat. The experiment didn’t last long. The same day, China’s state-run Xinhua News declared that it’s already ended.
Chang’e 4 touched down in early January.
A team from Chongqing University in China developed a sealed biosphere habitat stocked with seeds, fruit fly eggs and yeast that it hoped would create a mini-ecosystem. The cotton seed was the only one to sprout.
