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posted by mrpg on Friday January 18 2019, @01:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-lose-hope-humans! dept.

First green leaf on moon dies as temperatures plummet

The appearance of a single green leaf hinted at a future in which astronauts would grow their own food in space, potentially setting up residence at outposts on the moon or other planets. Now, barely after it had sprouted, the cotton plant onboard China’s lunar rover has died.

The plant relied on sunlight at the moon’s surface, but as night arrived at the lunar far side and temperatures plunged as low as -170C, its short life came to an end.

Prof Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University, who led the design of the experiment, said its short lifespan had been anticipated. “Life in the canister would not survive the lunar night,” Xie said.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday January 18 2019, @02:13PM (4 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 18 2019, @02:13PM (#788233) Journal

    Why set lighting at a 24h cycle like on Earth? Anyone who has set up a REAL grow operation knows that you have the lights on 24/7. Monitoring and redundancy prevent downtime so that your lights have a five nines uptime.

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    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday January 18 2019, @03:28PM (1 child)

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday January 18 2019, @03:28PM (#788250)

    As I recall, many (even most) plants don't actually do that well under those conditions. Though there is at least one high-profit crop that benefits during some parts of its life cycle.

    As one example, many plants such as Mother-in-Laws-Tounge actually respirate at night rather than during the day. Interfere with that cycle, and they'd die fairly quickly.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday January 18 2019, @03:38PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday January 18 2019, @03:38PM (#788256) Journal

      Of course the nice thing about artificial lighting is that you can give each plant the lighting it likes best. If the plant needs a night, give it a night. If the plant grows best under 24/7 light, give it 24/7 light. And if it prefers different patterns at different development stages, just change the lighting pattern accordingly.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by AssCork on Friday January 18 2019, @06:29PM (1 child)

    by AssCork (6255) on Friday January 18 2019, @06:29PM (#788338) Journal

    Anyone who has set up a REAL grow operation knows that you have the lights on 24/7.

    Don't know WTF you're growing, but most plants require "shorter days" and a drop in temp to signal them that winter has arrived, and the inverse to trigger a "spring weather" response.

    --
    Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 18 2019, @08:58PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 18 2019, @08:58PM (#788408) Journal

      I never regularly watched, but I have a vague memory of an old 1980's episode of Battlestar Galactica where one child is expressing his skepticism to another child that it would be possible to grow plants without a computer.

      Maybe an AI could, by trial and error, learn the optimal light and temperature cycles to maximize growth / profits / food-supply.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.