Vegetables Grown In Antarctica Without Sun Or Soil For First Time

Being able to grow food in even the most unforgiving of environments is something that scientists have been striving towards for decades and Antarctica is as unforgiving as they get. This is where German scientists were able to grow vegetables and greens for the first time without involving soil or sunlight. This development could have explosive implications for space exploration and colonization.

The breakthrough was the work of researchers working at the Neumayer Station III, which is a scientific structure owned by Germany. Even as the temperatures outside sat at a freezing -20C or -4F, they were still able to harvest up to eight pounds of greens and 18 cucumbers, AP News reports.

After this successful attempt, the German Aerospace Center DLR says that their next target is to increase the yield of the high-tech garden in the frozen region. The hope is that by next month, the scientists would be able to harvest four to five kilograms (10 to 12 pounds) of vegetables every week. This is about how much a medium sized science team would need to survive with relative comfort in terms of nutrition.

As Quartz notes, the whole point to the project and those like it is to find ways to grow food in inhospitable environments so that venturing out into space won’t leave astronauts needing to rely only on processed meals. This particular development could have huge implications for the numerous planned colonization efforts involving other planets.

Having a colony on the Moon and Mars are currently the targets of space agencies all over the world, both private and government-owned. From a pure survival and productivity standpoint, being able to grow their own food would also make colonists more likely to have a chance at succeeding. The task of establishing a colony on another planet is daunting enough without taking the lack of real food into account.