"Welcome to our new 'classroom'!" said Chen Dong, one of the three astronauts of the Shenzhou XIV mission.
They were giving a science class 400 kilometers above Earth on Oct 12, 2022. It was the third space class from the Tingong space station, but the first one from the Wentian module. The first two classes were held in the Tianhe module.
What does the new "classroom" look like? Chen, together with Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, showed us around. "The beds in the Wentian module are kept upright," said Liu. That means astronauts in the Wentian module need to sleep standing up! But as Liu explained, people don't feel any difference because there's no gravity (重力) in space.
The astronauts also showed their "space farm", where lettuce, wheat, thale cress and rice are grown. "Take a picture!" "Send the picture!" Through a voice-controlled camera, Chen already sent a picture of the thale cress to scientists on Earth. Then he used scissors to cut a sample (样本) . "I'll putit into a fridge at -80℃ and later give it to scientists on Earth," said Chen. Scientists will study how the environment of space affects the growth of plants.
"Can you see the water drops coming from the leaves? This is called "guttation.' (植物吐水)," said Liu, holding the well-grown rice. In space, the water drops are much bigger than those on Earth. So people can clearly see the guttation.
"We hope in the near future, we can harvest the food grown on our own," said Chen. "Maybe one day, we can grow food on the moon or even on Mars!"