China s cotton sprout planted on moon first, unable to survive extreme bitter cold lunar night

No sooner did we think that life on the surface of the Moon can be a possibility than we got to know that it is still a far-fetched dream of our scientists. The Chang'e-4 biosphere experiment in which scientists intended to grow seeds of cotton has ended. The cotton plant could not bear the bitter cold long lunar night which led to the death of the plant.

On January 3 scientists from Chongqing University in southwest China landed China's robotic spacecraft Chang'e-4 on the far side of the moon. The lander carried the seeds of cotton, rape, potato and Arabidopsis, eggs of the fruit fly and yeast with a motive to grow biological matter on the Moon.




The images released on January 7 showed the sprouting of cotton in a mini-biosphere created by the scientists giving them a ray of hope to grow plants on the moon. But, when the night fell on the moon, the cotton seeds along with rapeseed, potato, Arabidopsis, fruit fly eggs and yeast died.



The experiment continued for 212.75 hours and ended when the temperature of the moon dipped below zero. Talking about the reason behind the failed experiment Liu Hanlong, head of the experiment said, the temperature inside the 1-litre-capacity canister had reached -52 degrees Celsius and the experiment had ended. The temperature of the moon drops to -180 degrees Celsius making the Lunar night harsh and bitter to bear for the plants