If the space colonies of the future are going to be anything other than miserable orbiting gray domiciles, we better be sure plants can grow in them. NASA certainly envisioned tomorrow's space towns with plenty of foliage–that's its 70s-era mockup for an interstellar colony pictured above. Good thing, then, that it turns out that plants don't need gravity to grow roots.Researchers have been growing Arabidopsis plants on the International Space Station for two years, studying the development of the small flower's roots. It's long been held that gravity is the primary reason that the roots grow downward in their search for plant-food.But the new research has debunks that idea; the plants grew in a nearly identical pattern on land (the same species of Arabidopsis was grown at Kennedy Space Center at the same time) and in an entirely weightless environment.National Geographic reports thatSeeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity.Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.The plants did grow differently–they grew slower in space–but they still flourished without gravity. Which is good news for us, since we will probably be living on low-gravity deep space supercities after we finish rendering earth inhospitable. And we're going to need some green spaces and fresh air as we hurtle across the galaxy.
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