Life on Mars News: New Experiment Presents Possibility of Agriculture on Red Planet
Farming on planet Mars is possible, as evidenced by a new experiment held by Wageningen University and Research.
A group of Dutch scientists found that earthworms, which are crucial in a sustainable closed agricultural ecosystem, are able to breed in a Mars-like environment and that they could do the same on the Red Planet.
The Martian conditions comes in the form of simulated soil by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) procured from a volcano in Hawaii and a desert in Arizona, which represent Mars and moon rocks, respectively.
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It was mixed with pig manure in place of human waste for safety reasons, a move that also unexpectedly resulted to the Mars soil simulant to "outperform" Earth silver sand.
This is the setup that became the home of a pair of live adult worms that managed to produce two young worms under these conditions. In a press release, Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen University and Research had this to say about the discovery:
Clearly the manure stimulated growth, especially in the Mars soil simulant, and we saw that the worms were active. However, the best surprise came at the end of the experiment when we found two young worms in the Mars soil simulant.
The result of the experiment is a big step towards the study that aims to determine whether or not humans can fend for themselves on Mars by farming and growing their own crops:
Worms are very important for a healthy soil, not only on Earth but also in future indoor gardens on Mars or the moon. They thrive on dead organic matter such as old plant remains, which they eat, chew and mix with soil before they excrete it. This poo still contains organic matter that is broken down further by bacteria, thus releasing nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium for use by the plants. By digging burrows the worms also aerate and improve the structure of the soil, making watering the plants more effective.
Wamelink explains that putting the worms on the simulated Mars soil solved their initial issue of water not being able to penetrate the soil.
The set of Food for Mars and Moon experiments, as they are officially called, started in 2013 and has come a long ways since then.
According to Wamelink, they can now grow an assortment of crops on the mock Martian soil including green beans, peas, radish, tomato, potato, rucola, carrot and garden cress — all proven as safe for human consumption.
The latest experiment adds to the growing list of evidence that Mars could be conducive to life. However, there is still a long way to go.
While the result is quite promising, there are still factors that need to be ironed out, including the fact that actual Martian soil contains heavy metals that could be hazardous to earthworms —s omething that researchers are hoping to study next.
