A moon tree stands tall, illuminated from behind by artificial lights, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Planted in 1977,

Trees that traveled to space now live on Earth. Here's where to find them.

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2024-11-30 18:00:06

A moon tree stands tall, illuminated from behind by artificial lights, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Planted in 1977, the sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) grew from a seed that orbited the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

Since 1977, a stately sycamore has greeted visitors to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. It looks like any other sycamore, one tree among many on the quiet, leafy campus in suburban Maryland.

But what many passersby may not realize as they stand under its dappled shade or admire its changing foliage is that this tree came from the moon.

The Goddard sycamore is one of the dozens of so-called “moon trees” scattered around the country, grown from seeds that traveled with astronaut Stuart Roosa on the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. Roosa was the command module pilot, which means that he remained in lunar orbit while commander Alan Shephard and lunar module pilot Edgar Mitchell visited the surface of the moon. During that time, Roosa had hundreds of seeds tucked inside his personal kit.

Part scientific experiment, part public relations venture, the seeds represented a joint project between the U.S. Forest Service and NASA. Roosa had been a smoke jumper with the Forest Service before becoming an astronaut, and bringing the seeds to space helped raise awareness of the federal agency, while also giving NASA scientists an opportunity to probe an important question: How does being in microgravity affect plants?