A project by two students of the Central University, Tiruvarur, is one of the two selected to participate in a project to create sustainable life on Moon.
The Lab2Moon international contest is open to students below the age of 25.
Santhosh and Sukanya Roychoudhary from the University and Autumn Kelsea Conner, a final-year Computer System engineering student from Arizona State University have collaborated in the project, which would study photosynthesis reaction on Moon.
“We will take bacteria found in Antarctica, Israel desert and Atacama desert in South America. The bacteria survive temperatures as low as -25 to -30 degree C and 60 degree C. It was used in an experiment done in international space station by the European Union and returned live to earth after 580 days. On the moon, the temperature would range from -30 degree C to about 100 degree C. The experiment would be done on the side facing the sun,” said P. Ravindran, who is supervising the project.
The bacteria would be put in a micro bioreactor and launched by the ISRO in December this year, Prof. Ravindran explained. “The bacteria converts carbon dioxide into oxygen and it grows. This is the first experiment on moon’s surface. We got expertise from Anna University and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, besides a team of students from Arizona University,” Prof. Ravindran added.
The project was the result of Santhosh, an integrated M.Sc Physics student, who wants to pursue Ph.D in Astrobiology. “The project came from him; he wrote the proposal and his sister Sukanya, an integrated M.Sc Mathematics student, has pitched in with her expertise in the subject.”
The students’ project was among the 3,000 entries from 15 countries for the Lab2Moon international contest, which was chosen by a jury that included former ISRO chairman K. Kasturirangan, former president of CNES (French Space Agency) Alain Bensoussan and Priyamvada Natarajan, theoretical astrophysicist and Professor at Yale University.
