NASA is busy planning the next space missions to Mars and, amidst various ups and downs, is also working to plan the very first human missions to the red planet, not without some controversy or delay. In fact, the first statements exploring these in
Recently, some Chinese ecologists have made a small leap forward, which will allow astronauts to reach the red planet with greater peace of mind in the future.
Daoyuan Zhang, Yuanming Zhang and the botanist Tingyun Kuang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have recently discovered a new species of moss that is able to withstand harsh environmental conditions and survive on the barren surface of Mars.
His name is Syntrichia caninervis and it is a species that grows in Antarctica and on the slopes of Tibet. It is capable of resist temperatures below -196 °C and Chinese scientists decided to freeze some samples for a month.
Upon thawing, the specimens of these bryophytes were perfectly capable of recovering and reproducing, but they were also capable of resist gamma radiation, which are very frequent on Mars due to the small size of its atmosphere.
Scientists are now engaged in a series of studies, which aim to push these mosses beyond their limit. The aim is to provide to NASA and other space agencies intending to colonize Mars, a plant capable of growing on the hostile surface of the fourth planet of the solar system, so as to start its terraformation.
“Although there is still a long way to go to create self-sustaining habitats on other planets, we have demonstrated the great potential of S. caninervis as a pioneer plant for growth on Mars,” write the researchers in their article published in the journal The Innovation. “Looking ahead, we expect that this promising moss could be taken to Mars or the Moon to further test the possibility of plant colonization and growth in space.”
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