A team of scientists overwintering at a remote station in Antarctica has harvested crops grown in a high-tech greenhouse designed to test technologies that could one day feed explorers on the moon and Mars.
The greenhouse, called EDEN ISS, is run by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), which cooperates with NASA on space agriculture research.
Currently in its fourth season, the greenhouse grows plants aeroponically, which means that the roots of the plants are suspended in air; nutrients and water are delivered in the form of a specially formulated mist, without the presence of soil.
The greenhouse is part of the Neumayer Station III, an Antarctic research station operated by Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute of the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven.
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