​Giant leaf for mankind? 🇨🇳China germinates first seed on moon 🌓

Yesterday Hannah Devlin, the Guardian's science correspondent has published a sensational article about a small cotton shoot is growing onboard Chang’e 4 lunar lander.

This article remains an issue of active public debate around the world and has already achieved 900 comments on Reddit. Let's consider the key messages.

🔹The sprout has emerged from a lattice-like structure inside a canister after the Chang’e 4 lander touched down earlier this month.

🔹«This is the first time humans have done biological growth experiments on the lunar surface,» said Xie Gengxin who led the design of the experiment.

🔹The ability to grow plants in space is seen as crucial for long-term space missions and establishing human outposts elsewhere in the solar system, such as Mars.

🔹The Chang’e 4 probe made the world’s first soft landing on the far side of the moon on 3 Januarya major step in China’s ambitions to become a space superpower.

🔹Scientists from Chongqing University sent an 18cm bucket-like container holding air, water and soil. Inside are cotton, arabidopsis, potato seeds, fruit-fly eggs and yeast.

🔹Images sent back by the probe show a cotton plant has grown well, but so far none of the other plants had sprouted, the university said.

🎁 Bonuses
What comments have scored the largest number of upvotes on Reddit?

GuiltyLie said: «But why fruit flies? I hate fruit flies. Can they even pollinate a plant? What we really need are bees 🐝 on the moon. A colony of moon bees!».

Tjhintz answered to GuiltyLie: «Fruit flies are a really good model for scientists to observe how mutations affect development! Plus we don’t feel as bad doing cruel experiments with them as we would with bees».