Bizarre reason NASA took 500 seeds to the Moon with them in 1971
One small seed for mankind
The mysteries of space have led to countless tests and experiments, questioning how everything we do and use holds up in the great unknown, yet one of NASA’s strangest trials involved 500 seeds and some pretty exceptional results.
You never know how anything will react when putting it in a completely new environment, and space is perhaps the perfect testing ground when it comes to understanding unique experiences.
Gravity and oxygen are two major factors that play a fundamental role in the growth and development of almost all living things, so what would happen when you place them in an environment where both factors are completely absent?
That’s exactly what NASA wanted to test out with their ‘Moon Trees’ project, taking roughly 500 seeds into outer orbit in the 1971 Apollo 14 expedition to see just how they would react and grow having been exposed to the unnatural environment of space.
Part of the Apollo 14 mission involved taking 500 seeds around the Moon (Bettmann via Getty Images)
As reported by Science Alert, the seeds chosen by the US Forest Service included five different species of tree:
- Loblolly Pine (Pinus Taeda)
- California Redwood (Sequoia Sempervirens)
- American Sycamore (Platanus Occidentalis)
- Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga Meziesii)
- American Sweet Gum (Liquidambar Styraciflua)
These seeds were then taken on 34 orbits around the Moon before returning to Earth with the mission, upon which they were planted and grown back at home to see how their exposure to microgravity and space radiation affected their development.
Thankfully most of the seeds proved to be successful and grew as you would expect, and this was perhaps best seen in ‘control’ seedlings that were planted next to counterparts that hadn’t left the Earth.
As some scientists expected, after over 40 years there are no discernable differences between the space and non-space versions, which is somewhat disappointing depending on your perspective.
Moon Trees are dotted all across America and some are even found worldwide too (NSSDC)
Beyond the control variants though, seedlings were sent out across both America and the rest of the world as gifts, and the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive has a mostly comprehensive listing of every ‘Moon Tree’ location across our planet.
Most of which have been planted across the United States, with spots at various universities, science centers, and even the White House, but you can also see certain seedlings in other countries like Brazil and France.
Unfortunately a fair amount of these Moon Trees are no longer alive, including the aforementioned White House seedling, with the status of many others currently unknown too.
It might be something to add to your bucket list if you’re a space enthusiast though, as ticking off all of the locations of trees that have made the orbit around the moon would be both a fascinating and enriching achievement.Featured Image Credit: Milamai / Getty
Published 12:23 18 Feb 2025 GMT
NASA reveals 100,000,000 people are living in a risk zone for asteroid with 500 times the power of an atomic bomb
Chances of it hitting Earth have recently doubled
Tom Chapman
The end days could be upon us.
When we’re not worrying about an artificial intelligence uprising that will wipe out the human race, it’s whoever has their finger on the nuclear button or whether climate change will even leave us with a planet to live on.
None of that really matters, as an unexpected threat from outer space is also one to add to the list of potential reasons we won’t be sleeping tonight.
NASA recently warned us about the supposed city-killer asteroid known as 2024 YR 4, and despite it currently being 27 million miles away, the 300-foot Goliath could be on a collision course with Earth in less than a decade.
Odds have recently risen from just a 1% chance of hitting Earth to 2.3%, and while that not might seem like much, double the chances don’t sound too good to us.
According to NASA, there are currently no other asteroids that have an impact probability over 1%.
2024 YR4 recently doubled its chances of striking Earth (ESA/ NEOCC)
As for the impact risk corridor of 2024 YR4, the Independent shows off a projected path that sees the asteroid head eastwards from the Pacific Ocean, roaring over South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, and the Middle East before potentially putting Asia in its sights.
2024 YR4 could actually strike at any of these points, and with its mapped trajectory taking it over eight of the top 100 most populated cities in the world, the urban areas of these cities have a combined population of over 110 million.
Bogotá, Abidjan, Lagos, Khartoum, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Dhaka are all in the firing line.
With 2024 YR4 having a destructive power that’s said to be 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, we’re right to be concerned.
After all, the Tunguska asteroid was a similar size to 2024 YR4 and destroyed 830 square miles of forest when it struck Siberia in 1908.
Even though there are hopes that we can intercept the asteroid if it’s actually on course to collide with Earth, NASA has also been warned of the devastating consequences of doing so.Play
The good news is that while NASA and other space agencies suggest it would have an impact radius of 50 kilometers, they don’t think it poses a serious threat to our planet.
2024 YR 4 was first discovered by Chile’s Asteroid Terrestial-impact Last Alert System station in December 2024. NASA and other organizations have been keeping a close eye on it and will continue to monitor its movements as they try to work out exactly how big this flying time bomb actually is.
A European Space Agency spokesperson told the Daily Mail: “Astronomers around the world are using powerful telescopes to measure the asteroid’s orbit as accurately as possible.
“But knowing its orbit will only tell us the asteroid could impact Earth, not how significant an impact could be.
“It is very important that we improve our size estimate for 2024 YR4: the hazard represented by a 40 m asteroid is very different from that of a 90 m asteroid.”Featured Image Credit: solarseven / Getty
Published 17:19 26 Feb 2025 GMT
NASA launch daring project ahead of landmark Artemis mission to land humans on the Moon for the first time in 54 years
IM-2 is among the three lunar landers racing toward the Moon
Tom Chapman
We’re once again shooting for the Moon, and while it’s been 54 years since humans last stepped foot on its rocky surface, Intuitive Machines once again hopes to put a lunar lander up there.
Eugene Cernan has the honor of being the last man on the Moon, serving as part of the Apollo 17 crew in 1972.
Although attempts to explore the celestial body have died down between the Luna 24 probe (1976) and China’s Chang’e 3 rover (2013), there have been plenty of uncrewed crashes between.
Following a successful launch and landing of its Odysseus Nova-C lunar lander in 2024, Intuitive Machines is hoping to strike it lucky with the launch of IM-2.
Hopefully launching on February 26, the Athena lander will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
This will mark three lunar landers heading toward the Moon, with Athena following IM-1’s legacy as the first soft lunar landing by a private company.
IM-2 is due to launch of February 26 (Intuitive Machines)
As IM-1 was the first American-made spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since 1972, its successor is something of a big deal.
Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus cheered the mission and said: “Humanity has never witnessed three lunar landers enroute to the Moon at the same time, and Athena is ready to rise to the occasion.
“This profound opportunity to make history isn’t solely built on technology – it’s established through the relentless dedication of our people, who have turned the Company’s words about a reliable cadence of lunar missions into action.”
Athena follows in the footsteps of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and Japan’s ispace RESILIENCE launching on January 15, with the former due to land on March 2 and the latter going the long way around to make it there at sometime in April. As for Athena, it’s penciled in for a tentative landing date of March 6.
Athena hopes to uncover lunar water ice, carrying a drone that will attempt to provide the first measurement of hydrogen in the permanently shadowed region (PSR). Later in 2025, the IM-3 mission is planned to conduct experiments on the unexpected magnetic field that has been uncovered near the Reiner Gamma swirl.
Go Athena! @Int_Machines’ flight, IM-2, is scheduled to launch on Feb. 26 from @NASAKennedy and land at a location near the lunar South Pole. The IM-2 mission is a part of @NASA’s lunar delivery initiative to conduct science and tech on the Moon for the benefit of all.
Referring to Odysseus short-lived mission before it lost power on February 29, 2024, Intuitive Machines’ senior vice president of space systems Trent Martin told Space.com: “We ended up on our side, and we weren’t able to use our large, high-gain antenna to send data back to the Earth.
“This time, hopefully, we land in a more precise position.”
With things destined to get a little packed on the Moon, it all comes ahead of NASA’s plans to put humans back up there as part of the Artemis III mission. Intuitive Machines is providing unmanned craft as part of the Artemis program, where NASA looks to follow on from the Artemis I launching with robots and mannequins aboard in November 2022. Artemis II is scheduled to perform a flyby and send the first manned crew beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in April 2026. The big one is Artemis III, with NASA expected to launch no earlier than mid-2027 due to issues with the heat shield and life support systems on its Orion craft.Featured Image Credit: Intuitive Machines
NASA astronaut warns asteroid that could hit Earth is ‘500 times more powerful than Hiroshima’
The astronaut has said that the asteroid might hit Earth in 2032
Rikki Loftus
A NASA astronaut is warning the public that an asteroid that could hit Earth is ‘500 times more powerful than Hiroshima’.
Chris Hadfield is a former NASA astronaut who has now spoken out to warn people about a potential disaster.
In an interview with LBC, Hadfield shared details about the space rock that could collide with our planet.Play
In the clip, he said: “There’s so much stuff going on on Earth, orbiting the Earth and to the moon and beyond.
“Millions of things to talk about but one of the things we should talk about today, I think, is this asteroid.
“It was discovered on Christmas Day and it’s going to be back in 2028 just before Christmas and if it does smuck into the Earth it’s going to be in 2032 just before Christmas, so I’m calling it ‘the Christmas asteroid’.”
The astronaut continued: “Most asteroids are discovered by amateurs, people with their own telescopes who just love looking into the darkness and trying to find a star that’s where the star shouldn’t be or one that’s moving against the starfield, but this one is very faint, it has never been seen before this Christmas.”
According to Hadfield, the asteroid is going to come ‘quite close to Earth’ in 2028, with a probability of ‘one in 45 chance’ of making impact.
The asteroid could hit Earth in 2032 (MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images)
There’s also a chance that the asteroid could collide with Earth in 2032 and, if it does, it’s expected to do some damage.
Hadfield has warned that the asteroid is ‘about 500 times more powerful than the biggest bomb we exploded during World War II’.
Officially named 2024 YR4, the asteroid has NASA working to determine the extent of the potential damage after they predicted it is the size of Big Ben.
Many people took to social media to share their own reactions to the news.
One user wrote: “As each day goes by, the more I feel the Don’t Look Up movie should be revered as a monument in a museum for how scarily accurate it is.”
Another said: “When they find out where on Earth this thing is going to strike, they can build a massive 200 metre tennis racket and whack it back into space.”
And a third person added: “Just to clarify, this particular asteroid is coming in with too much momentum to realistically intercept it with a probe. But we would have plenty of time to evacuate the affected area if need be.”Featured Image Credit: MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images
Published 10:32 28 Feb 2025 GMT
NASA astronaut goes viral after posting bizarre act in just his underwear and the reaction is hilarious
That’s not something you see every day
Tom Chapman
Things must get a little boring while bobbing around in space and aboard the International Space Station.
After all, the fact you can’t drink alcohol up there means it’s not as simple as kicking back with a large glass of wine at the end of a busy day experimenting.
We’ve been given some fascinating insight into the lives of NASA astronauts recently, with the marooned Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore shedding new light on their daily routines.
At the time of writing, there are currently 10 astronauts in space, with Williams and Wilmore sharing the ISS with the Soyuz M2-26 and SpaceX 9 crews.
Elsewhere, the Shenzhou 19 crew are aboard the Tiangong space station.
Don Pettit is NASA’s oldest active astronaut (Bill Ingalls/NASA / Handout / Getty)
As part of the Soyuz M2-26 crew, Don Pettit has been aboard the ISS for 166 days and might be struggling with ways to pass the time. Pettit might be NASA’s oldest active astronaut at the age of 69, but keen to show age is just a number, he’s shown off some impressive skills.
Proving that you can jump into a pair of khaki cargo pants in zero-g, Pettit answered people’s questions about whether it could be done.
More impressively, Pettit manages to do it both legs at a time – something that most of us would struggle to do down here on Earth.
Responding to Pettit’s very specific set of skills, one fan cheered: “When you return home, we are starting a new Olympic competition: Pant Vaulting. 🤣.”
Another added: “So astronauts are not like anyone else. They put their pants on two legs at a time.”
Someone else said: “After being trapped in space for months the real research has started 😂.”
Joking about Elon Musk’s infamous “What did you do last week?” email, a fourth joked: “After @elonmusk reads the email reply, ‘Put on pants this week’, the ISS will be deorbited immediately.”
@astro_Pettit
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OK; you all asked if this was possible…..
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Continuing to answer the questions we never thought we needed to know the answer to, Pettit has previously explained what space smells like, saying that life on the ISS has a distinct aroma: “The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit.
“It reminded me of pleasant sweet-smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.”
Pettit’s social media presence makes for some fascinating reading, and as a keen astrophotographer, he’s known for sharing beautiful shots of unique star trails from up in the cosmos.
With Pettit first blasting off in 2022, she’s something of a dab hand at navigating the difficulties of being aboard the ISS. Apparently, getting dressed isn’t one of them. Great, now tell us how the toilets on the ISS work.
