Did We Just Find Moss That Could Terraform Mars? The Immortal Moss Syntrichia Caninervis

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Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the insane immortal moss that beats tardigrades in survivability - Syntrichia Caninervis
Links:
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#moss #tardigrade #mars
0:00 Mars terraforming
0:40 Discovery of a strange moss
2:05 Dehydration
2:55 Extreme cold
3:45 Compared to tardigrades
4:15 Gamma ray radiation
5:20 Martian conditions simulation
6:05 What this means
7:00 Conclusions and how this could colonize Mars
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Credit:
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[@gtheofanopoulos]

Every time I listen to "Hello wonderful person, this is Anton", I heave a sigh of relief, feeling that the part of the world I enjoy, is still there.

[@azieldaly2965]

Ynb5bbt

[@ekramer2478]

Yes! Anton brings a better world!

[@alanhyland5697]

Yeah, Anton's channel is a refuge of happiness

[@72marshflower15]

Too bad he’s politically illiterate enough to support Ukraine. So long as he stays in his lane, he’s great..

[@ekramer2478]

@@72marshflower15 Wasn't going to reply and not glad of the conflict, but Ukraine has every right to want to be independent of Russia. Take a look at the Holodomor. That was not the beginning. Ukraine has its own language and its own culture and Soviet Russia killed its way through that. I am not happy with their current leader either but I am very much not happy with Russia controlling them and honestly stealing their things. Too Anton is not an actor. He is however highly intelligent. So yes, I am willing to hear his positions.

[@alden1132]

It's easy to see why similar lifeforms were among the first to colonize land on Earth. I've always thought it was cool to imagine a primeval Earth with nothing but endless vistas of green, mossy rocks, or forests of giant, tree-like mushrooms. Imagine time-traveling to a period when there was nothing else on the planet but primitive photosynthesizers...

[@NightRunner417]

Go back too far and you'd better come in a space suit, hehe. Pre-oxygen-crisis would have been really interesting to see. Better still, stay long enough to see it happening.

[@pauls5745]

I think nature has hedged it's bet. Tardigrades and salad for them for after the apocalypse.

[@alden1132]

@@NightRunner417 Anaerobic prokaryotes, represent! 😆

[@EnkiduShamesh]

@@NightRunner417 not just then. For about 80% of the last 500 million years, any human that traveled back would either asphyxiate due to too little oxygen, or get oxygen poisoning because there was too much. One reason why Jurassic Park would never work.

[@Traisas]

@@EnkiduShameshthat's interesting 👍

[@PrometheusZandski]

It's incredible to see mosses that can accomplish these recoveries from cold, dry and radioactive conditions. The problem is that if this is going to terraform Mars, it will need to thrive in these conditions instead of just not die. It's a long jump from being able to recover to being biologically active in a Mars environment.

[@Badficwriter]

I bet it could evolve to thrive in Mars conditions, given one viable environment (Earth condition tent) and time..

[@PrometheusZandski]

@@Badficwriter I hope you are right, but I'm not sure how long that may take. First, there needs to be a path of energy to show that evolution is possible.

[@whome9842]

More likely would be used to produce oxygen inside greenhouses before we get there.

[@edgedg]

@@Badficwriter Ain't nobody got time for millions of years though.

[@baracke]

@@whome9842 I vote regolith cave systems bored our by digger tube bots. one small oculus at the surface with a lens shaft for vertical farm. I want to get there and have a ton of Mars between me and the Sun, filled with mossy oxygeny goodness.

[@gweebara]

Having planted and nurtured a lot of mosses over my time I can attribute to the fact that they are incredibly hardy and survive even long after you think you've killed them.... Thank you for an excellent video as always Anton

[@KenFullman]

But I assume that every time these mosses recovered, they had access to nitrogen. It's absolutely essential for life and practically non existant on mars.

[@gweebara]

@@KenFullman of course being terrestrial 70% of the atmosphere around them was nitrogen gas... Not something we found or have even theorized might be around Mars... There may be some subterraneally but it is likely whatever event caused Mars to lose its atmosphere and magnetic field also caused it to lose its gaseous nitrogen

[@michaeltape8282]

Wow, the moss can take something like 1000 times the gray a human can take! That's super cool! Bring on the tardigrades. Thanks Anton.

[@johnathanmandrake7240]

Does the grey value go up linearly? It could be a exponential growth maybe?

[@MichelleRomero-lf1nu]

Interesting.❤

[@sciencefliestothemoon2305]

going by the definition gray does not mean anything for biological organisms, that would be sievert.

[@pseudonayme7717]

20 seconds to recover! 😲 That made me say wow.😄

[@michaeltape8282]

@@pseudonayme7717 And after one month returned to viability, even after being in liquid nitrogen conditions! Sweet. Buck Rogers...

[@EstamosDe]

In the anime TerraFormars , mars was terraformed using moss and cockroaches

[@harielkops3287]

Saw the title and remembered it instantly

[@boneybone8123]

So it took 13 more years for a scientist to solve the problem than 2 guys, authors for an anime.

[@FloatingOer]

I feel like if they used tardigrades instead of cockroaches in the show the result would have been 1000 times worse

[@englishcoach7772]

The cockroaches eat the moss and poop around the new moss?

[@EstamosDe]

@@englishcoach7772 maybe, there are plot holes probably (what did they eat? Because there was almost no moss during the anime) haha but since cockroaches are also cannibals, when one of them dies, the corpses of their kind are food for the rest of them (not part of the anime)

[@IbocC64]

Can it survive perchlorates? If so, then send it to Vallis Marinaris. The pressure at the bottom is higher and sometimes has brine seeping from the sand at the bottom. The temperature sometimes gets up in to the 70s fahrenheit. If it could grow anywhere on Mars, it would grow there.

[@NyxNoughtNothing]

That was also my question. Yes, Mars has very little atmosphere, as well as extreme cold and radiation, but the soil is also very caustic.

[@kozmikhero6749]

Idea: Slowly overtime keep populations of this moss in conditions at the bare minimum of what it takes to grow. Every generation take the ones that survive and slowly make the conditions harsher and harsher to create a super moss. Although I don't know how moss reproduces so maybe that wont work

[@SpaceSheb]

project hail mary taumeba

[@abyssstrider2547]

Nice idea, using selective breeding to create something that can survive on other planets.

[@augustday9483]

Totally agree. We should create "Mars analog" enclosed habitats here on Earth that simulate the Martian biome, then we can selectively breed and test organisms that can survive and thrive in those conditions. We should also do this for Venus. Imagine if we could create an extremophile that could survive the surface of Venus. EDIT: fixed a typo.

[@tchekof]

@@augustday9483 I doubt any life organism can be selectively breed to survive the condition on the surface of Venus, you'd need a completely different life chemistry to withstand the atmospheric sulfuric acid and above 200°C temperature. Once we're able to create synthetic life we will probably be able to make organisms able to withstand those conditions, and they'll most likely be very very different from the life that naturally emerged on earth.

[@timothybarrett7626]

​@@augustday9483 some solid ideas it makes me hope someone at nasa thinks of it too

[@john_doe_not_found]

Without liquid water these mosses would never do more than remain dried out husks. There are apparently still small flows of liquid water on mars that can appear randomly when the conditions are right. But they don't last more than a few days and are then gone again. Daytime highs can reach 20-25C, but most of the time is below 0 all the way down to -150C.

[@dmytrospikin748]

Wow. Everytime hiking in forest I was thinking that moss probably would be the first plant to change Marses color. And badaboom!🎉 Very satisfying))

[@bergonius]

Good thinking

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

Wow is an understatement. This is mind blowing. Set this up in a greenhouse, provide some water and minimal heat, and you get oxygen. Vent excess into the atmosphere, after you get enough for the crew.

[@dmytrospikin748]

@waynesworldofsci-tech ...and ! You can "cook" liquid oxygen for your rocket 🚀 😉

[@DG-iw3yw]

Moss needs an abundance of water to reproduce, its gametes swim in water, not sure how it would work somewhere with such low available water

[@ft3917]

in denmark, about 30.000 students from schools were send into some forrests to collect micro wild life, in a small area they found 5 x new spieces off the very small animal you show here <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="235">3:55</a> . the animal that can survive almost everything. every collected sample the students collected were send to a laboratorie. that is how they found the 5 new spieces. the students studied moss and life living in the moss. the conclusion was that the small animal can be found all over denmark.

[@noxim_]

Tartigrade, water bear are amazing 😊 they could probably live on mars / moons of jupiter

[@aaronhenderson84]

it's pretty cool but still doesn't solve the problem of re-activating or creating a magnetosphere around mars (we haven't found a real feasible solution yet iirc)

[@NoMastersNoMistress]

I honestly can't even, as a budding sci fi writer, imagine a way to do that.

[@Parlepape]

​@NoMastersNoMistress there's some pretty scifi ideas about it, one was to use a giant ass fucking mirror I think

[@SciFiMangaGamesAnime]

@@NoMastersNoMistress reshaping Martian core into artificial mega magnet powered by fusion energy.

[@babyjiren9676]

Would still be interesting to see life flourish, even if its not advanced. Who knows, maybe this moss will eventually evolve into something new that doesn’t need a magnetosphere.

[@bergonius]

Mars lost its atmosphere over millions of years. All proposed terraforming techniques have timescales of centuries. That means we can generate an atmosphere thousands of times faster than it will deplete. Even without the artificial magnetosphere we're going to be just fine terraforming mars.

[@RoelPostma]

Moss is one of the most indestructible plants on earth, I can see it on my driveway it always comes back whatever I do to it.

[@filonin2]

Try salt.

[@Johnny_Appleweed]

Soooo, why are you doing things to it.

[@Pixeleyes]

On the driest day of the year, dump a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on it.

[@RaeHadzega]

Fire?

[@brianmarshall1762]

I’ve found laundry powder detergent is pretty good at killing it. Unlike iron sulphate which I use on my lawns, it doesn’t stain the concrete.

[@Martiandawn]

This reminds me of the oxygen-producing algae in that Val Kilmer movie about Mars 😂

[@DCGreenZone]

Red Planet, excellent film.

[@yomogami4561]

i was thinking the same thing

[@LiamRappaport]

I was also thinking the same thing

[@bigmarc1008]

Me too!

[@quinto190]

The bugs in that movie were stupid, totally over-the-top. The robot too (nice construction, but stupid behavior).

[@andrewepp6763]

Would love to see a green and red version of mars one day!!

[@ricardosefa4186]

Maybe even blue

[@agricolaurbanus6209]

You never will. All estimates about doing at least something like terraforming, i.e. creating some kind of viable athmosphere, are at least 800 years.

[@shangrilaladeda]

Mar a does have a green atmosphere

[@karlkorell8653]

@@agricolaurbanus6209 assuming we dont create new tech

[@CanadianStargazer]

Once you buy a refractor (possibly with a large lens dia), you can see and photograph red planet very often.

[@LordDustinDeWynd]

Algae, moss, and lichens, the building blocks to an atmosphere with free oxygen.

[@MurpheeLaw]

Except for that whole lack of a Magnetic Field, and Atmosphere problem Mars has.

[@LordDustinDeWynd]

@@MurpheeLaw Mars has strong magnetic field in southern hemisphere, and an atmosphere not currently breathable by humans.

[@LordDustinDeWynd]

@@MurpheeLaw That's what terraforming does, is convert current nasty atmosphere to something humans can breathe.

[@Badficwriter]

@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv Contained environments would be fine.

[@LordDustinDeWynd]

@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv Mars HAS an atmosphere, dust storms, dust devil's, cirrus clouds, the whole shmear.

[@bergonius]

I suggest redirecting an icy comet into a part of Mars with the lowest elevation to create even deeper crater. Extreme low elevations will have the highest atm pressure and warmest temperatures on the planet. There we can plant the moss and perchlorate eating bacteria.

[@bowerbird5808]

You don’t need to do that look up Valles Marineris. A crack in the Martian landscape up to 7 kilometres deep. I have often thought that that would be an optimal first base since the air pressure would be densest there. Sunlight could be redirected down the valley with a series of mirrors. Add water by harvesting ice asteroids and redirecting them to mars again you could have liquid water in the deepest section if sunlight were redirected. Dust on mirrors etc would be a problem but upside is shelter from the worst winds

[@pablog.3906]

@@bowerbird5808 acording to chatgpt at 7km deep in such a thin atmosphere would be just 1152Pa, instead of 610 at "sea level", just 1% of earth pressure, compared with just 0.6% at "sea level", don't think just a small difference would make a difference to increase growing.

[@sutenjarl1162]

@@pablog.3906 -> chat gpt

[@Treon]

@@pablog.3906 please don't refer to chatgpt for your research. it's unreliable and it's honestly kinda lazy to do that.

[@bowerbird5808]

@@pablog.3906 thanks - it is a thought anyway it is not a huge improvement in air pressure and I never thought it would get to earth normal but unless we seal off a lava tube to create a living space it is an option because although it will still require domes those domes should be more protected than they would be on the Martian surface

[@rogerdudra178]

I've long looked at moss as good. It's good to know someone else thinks moss is good now.

[@user-xc3ls8zh4x]

In some places at mars equator temperature could rise up to 20 degrees and liquid water occasionally present on surface, so this moss could survive and even be able to grow

[@user-mc5oh2pl7t]

@@hanyolo105 Low pressure is partly compensated by low temperature, actually if you look at water phase diagram at Wikipedia you will find that Mars' average atmospheric pressure is about where water still exist a liquid at temperature around 0C.

[@Alondro77]

Tardigrade, "I am almost immortal!" Syntrichia, "Heh, 'almost'. How weak..." Would defeat Goku.

[@Thomas-sb8xh]

Human: " I am the lousiest product of evolution, yet no matter what I will show everyone I can live happily on Mars" Tagrigrade: " You are deeply disturbed" Syntrichia: "I will be happy to grow on your grave" ;)

[@dephenistratordephenistrat8510]

@@Thomas-sb8xh humans are the best product of evolution! We adapt to nearly everything comfortably

[@Alondro77]

@@Thomas-sb8xh Alondro: IT WAS REALLY ME, DIO!!! 🤪

[@Alondro77]

@@dephenistratordephenistrat8510 Except dying... though, I am showing signs that my body has mutated enough to undergo total regeneration! (Alondro = Time Lord???)

[@Dethmeister]

I'm suprised youtube's nannybot doesn't block the word "tardigrade".

[@scottflick5758]

Need to aclimatize a stran, just for mars, like the inca did. By growing them in Earth conditions and slowly pushing conditions closer to those on Mars. Let epigenetics change the expressed genes to some that can support life under those conditions.

[@roberthofmann8403]

Clicked for moss and Mars. Stayed for moss, Mars and tardigrades!

[@Roust7]

There are certain Cyanobacteria from Antartica that live in very salty lakes. These Cyanobacteria will likely be able to live with underground salty water that exists on Mars. Problem of getting sunlight to them so they can photosynthesize

[@Roust7]

@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv you are right we see some water run off seasonally from underground in Mars. They can use the salty water and low lights when water goes above ground . Also there are water ice on Mars poles

[@IONindustries627]

Wasn't this part of the plot for the Movie 'Red Planet'?

[@ImUpsetThatYouStoleMyUsername]

thanks to the supporters and anton for the vids. hard to find quality science content but someone on twitch had recommended this channel ages ago... still enjoying it. kudos.

[@quinto190]

That's a great one! It really sounds like a start for a Martian ecosystem.

[@raftastrock]

Very cool, this connects strongly IMO on Denis Noble's work in Understanding LIving Systems, and how organisms adapt themselves to environments, creating niches of ecologies. Life likes challenges, and thrives through change. It suspect it wouldn't take long to "train" a group of this moss to not simply be dormant in a martian environment.

[@abyssstrider2547]

If we make an extreme martian environment in a lab and tube it down to where this moss can barely survive and let it reproduce, we could indeed train the strain to become something that could survive on Mars, though idk if there is enough moisture on Mars. Most of Mars is frozen solid.

[@cab566]

Good work, Anton. I was completely focused on this topic. 👍

[@baraskparas9559]

Great presentation and explanation, as usual.

[@charlesrovira5707]

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="427">7:07</a> You could grow square moss mats in human-rated habitats and then spread them over regolith-covered habitats to hold it down and stop it from being blown away. And then you wait until the atmosphere gets enough oxygen and water to revive the moss.

[@afreezaphorogiancossack2194]

Has there been any effort at seeding Mars? Any discussions about it? How about a water bear bomb?

[@TevrenEndrigan]

Great video as always, Anton! Desiccation tolerance, check (tolerates being very dried out). Cryotolerance, check. Radiation tolerance, check. Hypopiezotolerance, check (tolerates very low air pressure). Now let's see this incredible moss tolerate the perchlorate salts that are all over Mars, and we'll be in business!

[@bob456fk6]

This sounds very encouraging. Maybe with some genetic engineering we could develop a moss that likes Martian conditions.

[@WWZenaDo]

It will be interesting to see what evolutionary strides this species will take, to survive the much harsher Martian environment.

[@GadZookz]

You got a shoutout from Fraser Cain on the Eyeball Planet video!👍🏼

[@amphibiousone7972]

Good Stuff thanks for the share. 🤝

[@stephenwatts7734]

You have to be one of the best science communicators . That was an excellent episode.

[@ernestrombout2898]

Thank you so much for your interesting videos!

[@Rishi123456789]

Good video, Anton.

[@joehopfield]

I think you talked about a nearby star system that sometimes ejects objects at high speeds (25km/s?) - I did the math - it would only take 100,000 years or so to travel from there to here at those speeds. Panspermia anyone?

[@classic_sci_fi]

Very cool! I wonder if it could utilize the water very close to the surface.

[@therongjr]

I know why from a scientific perspective this would be terrible, but I kinda wish we could chuck handfuls of moss and tardigrades at Mars just to see what happens.

[@tinathelasttwenty1249]

Thanks for my daily dose of knowledge & happiness 💜

[@scottflick5758]

Interesting idea

[@Snoopyzell]

Fascinating... this was riveting to watch... wow 😮

[@BeissZang]

if u think about it, sure first dehydrate then frezze makes sense, watter particles get bigger when turned into ice, and when this happens inside the plant, it would shatter everythink, right?

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Yes

[@SuperLocrian]

Thank you! Best thing I've learned today.

[@michaelneal6589]

Thank you Anton

[@ShellHeinze]

Well done, thank you

[@TheMcEwens419]

I've never been so fast. . 😂 Great job like always! Now I have so much to research!

[@rogerdudra178]

Greetings from the BIG SKY of Montana.

[@filonin2]

I hate it when the sky talks to me about how huge it is. Like, I know man.

[@AllenBarclayAllen]

Good idea Anton ! <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="261">4:21</a>

[@Sagan_Starborn]

"As a biologist I understood now that the vegetation of Mars was predominantly red as opposed to our green, the vivid colour of blood. The red weed grew with astonishing vigor and luxuriance. It spread with cactus-like branches at a quite incredible speed." - H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

[@jimcurtis9052]

Wonderful as always Anton. Thank you. ✌️😀

[@SeptemberManHey]

Amazing discovery. I think it looks very cool for a moss. I'm not choosing between the moss and tardigrades tho. I hope this moss can elevate to become a new best friend like the tardigrades already are. Good luck Anton, take care.

[@CRYOKnox]

That is an awesome perspective.

[@arrixsmish8074]

I’m so fkn mind blown. Love this dudes channel

[@profplum1301]

Very cool!

[@akinnon2000]

This Moss could literally life at the frontier of day and night on Mars.

[@yvonnemiezis5199]

Very,very interesting 👍🤗

[@wesmaxey7885]

Plants are highly adaptable, its possible that if given enough time, this moss would just adapt to Mars and create the beginnings a simple primeval ecosystem.

[@Elyandarin]

Nice! Even if it can't grow in native conditions, the fact that it will survive if the module it's in gets ruptured is valuable in itself. Now we just need to make it more useful. Producing oxygen is fine, but maybe modify it to make it edible too?

[@thekingofmojacar5333]

Around 2.5 - 3.5 billion years ago, Mars had a habitable era, a strong atmosphere, stable magnetic fields and even a lot of water. It is therefore likely that life forms existed there, whether primitive or not, doesn't matter, evolution can produce most incredible things. Where there is water, there is usually nature and so with such specially developed creatures as Syntrichia Caninervis we can assume that particularly resilient life forms could also establish themselves on the hostile surface of Mars. The question is, do we human beings even have the right to carry out such interventions on other planets?

[@D-angelin.Moarar]

Omg yes! We should absolutely try to start breeding this moss. Maybe it can be pushed even further to develop resilience for thriving in the conditions on Mars. Also, we gotta start looking for regions on Mars that have the best climate.

[@gregpope4652]

Amazing!

[@geoffreyraleigh1674]

Wow! That is fasinating!

[@phaedrussocrates7636]

Thank you

[@DeathlordSlavik]

I used to see this type of moss quite regularly in the dry areas of Idaho and Oregon would look close to being dead for most of the year then would come to life as soon as it rained.

[@garretteckhart8079]

Thank you.

[@devongratrix4921]

I want tardigrades floating in space as a live wallpaper

[@freemanshackled]

Send them now.

[@bernardedwards8461]

Mmmm, moss and tardygrade soup, lovely grub! Surviving is not enough, it needs to grow and reproduce. There is nothing to be gained by introducing it to Mars, more to the point would be to find a nutritious food plant which could easily be grown in Martian greenhouses where conditions would seldom be ideal.

[@JawnDimples]

Amazing report. How does one purchase such a thing? This moss would do great in extreme conditions such as my home.

[@mizake01]

Yo Gabba Gabba plays in my head at the end of the videos, and I say "Bye Anton" like we eould day "Bye DJ Lance" . Best wishes, love for y'all. 🙂

[@lloydfromfar]

Alright I am sold. Let's start Mars terraform project! :D

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Go for it . Please report back on your results .

[@DiscipleOfHeavyMeta1]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="196">3:16</a> - <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="253">4:13</a> They should've tested for heat tolerance too, like exposing it to temperatures approaching boiling point and exposing it to temperatures exceeding 100 C under higher pressure.

[@John-qt4si]

So were the invasive species, introducing an invasive species to mars 😂. That was so fascinating about how resiliant moss is. Great vid

[@ModelLights]

Even if it can't survive directly, its huge tolerance could make getting something up and running on Mars much easier. Greenhouse, plus solar collection, plus water, plus atmosphere concentration, then grow this. You might easily be able to get this into actually growing, with mostly passive systems and very little support, and be producing organic base matter for other things to grow from. And if something goes wrong, the moss will still mostly survive and be relatively easy to repair and start things back up again. It can make everything easier to start, and much more fault tolerant that if it a less hardy plant was at the bottom tier. Since it won't just die off, your system can become almost failure proof and give you a lot more operational leeway. Looked it up and Mars has 44% from inverse square law, so roughly half of Earth's sunlight. So just some basic 2x mirror concentration, plus atmosphere and water and you're about growing Earth plants anyway. The moss will just make it fault tolerant, and you could make even more simple 'moss bed only' systems to grow extra organic fodder to grow the other plants in.

[@tomholroyd7519]

I'm glad you fixed your green screen but that shadow on your right shoulder ...

[@tkermi]

I have always loved the look and feel of most moss. I don't mind some of my lawn having it instead of grass.

[@dougirvin2413]

WOW! Revive in 20 seconds! Liu Cixin would be proud!

[@alanhyland5697]

Hello Wonderful Anton

[@colleenforrest7936]

Could make a good building material. Maybe it could grow on the cave walls of an underground Martian habitat, adding to the greenery for the people living there.

[@matheussanctosrj3274]

We want 150 tons of this moss, inside a SpaceX Starship, leaving Earth to Mars, as soon as possible.

[@UlrichVIII]

nice!!

[@gregpope4652]

Blows my mind

[@NDcrd]

Спасибо Антно! Очень интересно!

[@gregsonwoods]

Pressure in the test vessel was apparently '650 ± 30 Pa' . Pressure at the bottom of Hellas Planitia is around double at 1240 Pa (just above Mars water triple point). I wonder if they'd start metabolising in Hellas?

[@FreshSmog]

Wild idea btw. Can we try terraforming the Earth first?

[@talroitberg5913]

Hello wonderful Anton, thank you for almost completely avoiding the unpleasant "expanding rings" visual effect like we see at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="527">8:47</a>

[@christmassnow3465]

One important component almost absent in Mars atmosphere is nitrogen. It's an important element and one of the building blocks in proteins. Plus, at such low atmospheric pressures water cannot exist as liquid. Expect moss to grow inside the pressurized habitats instead.

[@hams3r_dont_upload_anythin182]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="561">9:21</a> your smile 🙂

[@rczarnecki]

Idea is good, but there are two issues that need to be adressed first: 1. Lack of liquid water on Mars - there is no way to water it down 2. Lack of Magnetosphere - Mars doesn't have active iron core and a sattelite big enough to propel molten core and generate magnetic field, so there is no protection against solar flares. Those two things can be addressed by building a pressurized facility in cave and build solar panels above to generate electricity necessary to emit artificial sunlight on moss.

[@MrScottr1958]

There is always an unintended consequence Anton.

[@SteveSiegelin]

This just brought two interesting ideas to mind. First off this Moss might be perfect for oxygen recirculation inside of spacecraft as well. Also it would be interesting to leave that moss in the chamber and slowly raise the temperature and pressure until we found the point where it became active again. I literally just bought a bigger vacuum pump to build a chamber like this. I have a greenhouse containment unit I want to test and see if it will take the lack of pressure. It'd be interesting to see how the Moss would interact with snake plants as well as the rest of the garden. Between those two and the blend of vegetables we grow we may be able to finally unlock the ability to recirculate our atmosphere somewhere to Earth cycle but within the spacecraft or lander. At the moment my dome design is a collapsible dual layer dome which plans for a noble gas or shield gas in between the two layers. My prototype can take the absence of pressure for a short period of time but I haven't been able to get my chamber of low enough to really test it. The problem is that the materials won't take radiation at the moment. I'm tempted to buy some samples of this Moss now and put it in the containment unit. That means I'll have to go ahead and design the new grow lights. You can't have growth without light. PS for anybody in the US that wants to work with some kind of grow light technology for greenhouses you can easily modify the LED grow light bulbs from Walmart. You're going to need to disassemble a ballast for a black light or desk light can you make the power source and you will need an AC power source but I'm sure you could build a DC power supply that fits the proper voltage and amperage. That's my final step so that I can install it in the little greenhouse now with a battery supply

[@BIG-DIPPER-56]

Interesting 👍

[@supremeownage8995]

I mean, even if we did have moss making O2 on mars, wouldn't the planets complete lack of a magnetic field mean the sun would just keep blasting it all away anyways?

[@bugsbunny8691]

Of course, the scientists didn't give the moss anytime to adapt in the mars like experiment. At least that's what they documented for us to read about it. Why not give it a year?

[@alaricthefirst3532]

What an absolute unit

[@Jokers_Yugioh666]

Cool!