Many plants and animals on Earth are in danger of going extinct or becoming endangered. However, a new answer might be able to save them. In a building on the moon, scientists have been looking to space for an answer.
This building, which would store plant and animal cells on the moon, is called a lunar biorepository. Scientists say that the moon is the best place to store these things because of its warmth. An experienced researcher named Mary Hagedorn said, “There is no place on Earth cold enough to do it.”
Hagedorn has saved coral areas and made them grow again. In the past, she worked with freezing cells to keep them alive for hundreds of years. On the moon, they plan to do the same thing.
She told me that the Arctic Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway is what inspires her. Of course, because of the permafrost, the vault keeps the rooms at or below zero degrees. “Svalbard has done a great job of saying, ‘OK, we need to save seeds,'” Hagedorn said. Seeds are important for everything on Earth. “Then how are we going to do that?”
They said that the temperature dropped to -3 hundred degrees in the darkest parts of moon craters. First, Hagedorn and her team will make it look like it’s Earth, and then they will do a test run on the space station.
They want to include a lot of different species, like coral, earthworms, pollinators, animals that live in harsh environments, and species that keep life going, like zooplankton and plants.
They expect to face a number of problems when they try to do this experiment on the moon. The center is looking into these possible problems as they start to get ready for a test that will be done on Earth in conditions similar to those on the moon.
