Would you eat space hummus? Scientists grow chickpeas in lunar dirt

Imagine this - you're an astronaut living on the Moon, and you need a snack after a long day at the lunar base.

What about some hummus or falafel, or even a curry?

Well, that might be possible, as scientists have managed to grow chickpeas - an ingredient in all of those foods - in a Moon-like soil in a lab.

It's a big breakthrough, as lunar soil is very hard to grow plants on.

We're not yet sure how the chickpeas taste, as the scientists have yet to try them, but would you eat food grown in space?

Let us know in the comments.

On Earth, the process of making food starts by growing plants in soil, which are then fed to animals or humans.

The soil on Earth is full of nutrients and minerals that help plants to grow, but on the Moon, it's very different.

Moon soil is called regolith, which is a mixture of crushed rock and dust, and it is inorganic - meaning not living.

Because of this, scientists have had a hard time trying to grow food on regolith, making this new research very exciting.

To start their experiment, scientists created their very own Moon soil by recreating samples that were collected more than 50 years ago during Nasa's Apollo missions.

The seeds were coated with fungi to help them grow and placed in the Moon soil with different mixtures of a substance full of nutrients and compost.

This helped the regolith - Moon soil - behave more like soil on Earth.

Chickpeas were grown in beds that had up to 75% Moon soil in them.

Even though this was a success, all of the plants that grew were affected by stress, and grew smaller leaves than they would in normal soil.

One of the authors of the study, Sara Oliveira Santos, called it "a small first step toward growing crops on the Moon", showing that the science is "moving in the right direction".

The study's lead author Jessica Atkin said: "Chickpeas are high in protein and other essential nutrients, making them a strong candidate for space crop production."

Sara added that learning to grow food on other planets is key in being able to explore more of space.

"In our goal toward establishing a lunar presence - or one on Mars - we will need to learn how to grow food on the Moon, since it will not be sustainable to ship food in spaceships."

The chickpeas that were grown were called 'Myles', and are being tested to make sure they're safe to eat.

The results of those tests will be published in another study - let's hope they're tasty.