URUMQI, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A type of moss discovered in a desert in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region can survive conditions that would kill most plants, including severe dehydration, intense radiation, extreme cold and Mars-like space environments.
This finding is among the major advances of the Third Xinjiang Scientific Expedition, which were released on Saturday in Urumqi, the regional capital city. Scientists describe the moss, Syntrichia caninervis, as "the most resilient desert plant found to date."
The latest evidence of its remarkable resilience was uncovered in space. In March this year, the dried moss was carried aboard China's test cargo spacecraft Qingzhou for an orbital life-restart experiment. Facing microgravity and cosmic radiation, a controlled watering system gave the plants only a tiny amount of liquid water. Yet, the dried moss revived, changing from gray-black to yellow-green.
"This is the first case in which a complete plant has been brought into low Earth orbit and successfully revived," said Li Xiaoshuang, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Continued in-orbit observation found the moss regenerating and thriving, indicating that it is an ideal material for deep-space life science research, Li added.
In 2024, Li, as the first author, published the moss study in an academic journal, The Innovation, saying it is a promising pioneer plant for "colonizing extraterrestrial environments."
Before the space test, scientists had already determined its genetic potential on Earth.
Researchers of the Xinjiang scientific expedition discovered the plant in the Gurbantunggut Desert. After lab analysis, researchers found that the plant could tolerate the dehydration of more than 98 percent of its cells, survive rapid freezing at minus 196 degrees Celsius, and overcome strong gamma radiation.
To understand how it endures such extremes, researchers obtained high-quality chromosome-level genetic information and found a large number of stress-related genes, unraveling the molecular code underlying this species' tolerance to extreme conditions.
It can provide genetic material for improving crops and restoring desertified land, Li said.
The Third Xinjiang Scientific Expedition was launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The previous two were conducted in the 1950s and 1980s, respectively.
Over the past five years, the expedition team carried out studies on Xinjiang's ecology, land and agriculture, biodiversity and biological resources, mineral, energy and water resources. ■
