From The Register:
The poor cotton seedling froze to death as temperatures plunged during the lunar night
The budding cotton seed hailed as the first plant to ever grow on the Moon, has, erm, died.
Xinhua, China’s state owned press agency, announced the unfortunate news merely hours after celebrating the plant’s successful germination. “The experiment has ended,” it said.
Maybe it's not that surprising, considering, the picture of the plant tweeted by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's Communist Party, was very difficult to spot.Earlier today:
Cotton, rape, potato, rockseed, yeast and fruit fly eggs were sent to space on the Chang’e probe inside a canister. Scientists working for the China National Space Agency spacecraft wanted to create a self-sustaining mini biosphere to see if life could survive on the far side of the Moon.
Although the cotton seedling was nurtured with water, natural sunlight, and, apparently, a temperature regulator, it proved no match for the Moon's frigid temperatures, which can drop as low as -170 degrees Celsius (-274 degrees in Freedom units)...MORE
"Cotton seeds sprout on Moon after Chinese rover begins era of lunar farming"
