The gene is borrowed from the spruce budworm, a pest that lives in coniferous trees. The average temperature hovers around -55 ☌ on Mars, so the researchers spliced an “antifreeze” gene into the moss. After several weeks, the moss seemed fine, bolstering the team’s confidence that it could handle Martian soils.Įxtreme cold is another challenge. Although that soil isn’t quite as bad as the stuff on Mars, studies performed by NASA’s Curiosity rover have found that the two have similar mineral compositions. In one experiment, the team planted moss in soil taken from Pu’u Nene, a volcanic cinder cone in Hawaii. “Why don’t we use moss to make components that are useful for space exploration?”īut first it must survive on Mars, where the dirt is nutrient-poor and full of poisonous salts. “Why don’t we use moss to make components that are useful for space exploration?” Humans are entering a realm of exploration in which we want to go to Mars and look at other planets, says team member Victoria Sosnovtseva. The team wondered whether moss could manufacture medicines for astronauts.

The students were inspired by TychoBio, a Copenhagen start-up that has genetically engineered moss to make chemicals such as ingenol mebutate, a treatment for skin cancer.

Types of moss download free