Tiny pits, webbing patterns, and a dusting of nanoparticles are not what most people picture when they think about farming. Yet those small scars may end up mattering if you ever try to grow food on the Moon or Mars. In a study described in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, researchers tested what happens when a nutrient-rich liquid made from recycled waste meets fake Moon and Mars dirt. The short version is this: the “soil” starts to change. Also, the liquid starts picking up useful elements that plants need. “In lunar and Martian outposts, organic wastes will be key to generating healthy, productive soils,” said Harrison Coker, the study’s first author from the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University and Texas A&M AgriLife. “By weathering simulant soils from the moon and Mars with organic waste streams, it was revealed that many essential plant nutrients can be harvested from surface minerals.” A hard problem: dirt that is not soil The Moon and Mars are covered in regolith, a dry mix of dust and …