Growing vegetables outside planet Earth might seem like an impossible task, however, a group of scientists made it and they grew not just red and juicy tomatoes, but tomatoes were so well grown as to make a special ketchup sauce.
Heinz teamed up with Florida Tech’s Aldrin Space Institute to successfully grow tomatoes in Martian soil conditions.
To do this, scientists recreated Mars conditions in terms of soil, temperature, and light in a greenhouse. These conditions mimicked the ones humans would face when stepping into the Martian soil.
In order to achieve growing the vegetables, Heinz’s Tomato Masters had to monitor the plants to deliver nutrients to the soil as to regulate the light conditions and eliminate martian soil toxins.
[The greenhouse in which tomatoes were cultivated mimicking Mars conditions. Imagen: Heinz]
This project is more than a marketing campaign. Its main goal is to enhance knowledge of growing vegetables in a sustainable way not only on Mars but on Earth as well.
According to some studies, Earth’s soil erosion could come to a point in which it can no longer filter and hold water, which means crops could get harder to achieve.
Before you hurry to your closest supermarket to look for this martian ketchup, we’re sorry to tell you that it is not on sale.
