Plant Found on the Moon

Okay, that’s a little misleading. The plant wasn’t just discovered; it was put there. When Chinese scientists checked photos sent back from their Chang’e lunar probe, they saw that a cotton seed had sprouted inside a sealed, temperature-controlled container, which they had put inside the probe and filled with water, soil, and air from earth. So technically, they found a plant on the moon—the first plant to germinate and grow on the “surface” of another world.

The experiment carried six different organisms in a protected, earth-like environment. Its purpose was to study the elements necessary to build a self-sustaining habitat on the moon as a step toward colonizing other planets.

The moon is lifeless and inhospitable. The only way to sustain life there is to transport the conditions of the one place God designed to be inhabited, the earth (see Isaiah 45:18). Experiments like this remind us that God created nature to be incredibly resilient and human beings to be resourceful and creative, even to the point of extending our ability to live in places beyond the surface of the earth.

This article was taken from Answers magazine, May–June, 2019, 23.