There are many Lego sets dedicated to space, but now there are Lego bricks made from material that astronauts have actually found. The Danish company has teamed up with the European Space Agency to create the pieces from real meteorite dust. They are currently available in several Lego stores.

This project is not only entertainment, but also a real demonstration of the concept of how astronauts can use lunar dust to build on the lunar surface. Given that transportation of building materials from Earth is very costly, the use of raw materials already available on the satellite could make a significant difference.

On the surface of the Moon there is a layer of rocks and minerals called lunar regolith. For a long time, it was believed that such raw materials would be needed to build the first extraterrestrial colonies. It is readily available, and there are several promising methods for turning it into a building material. After all, people have been building structures out of clay, soil, and sand for thousands of years.

However, there is not much lunar regolith on Earth that people can experiment with. Scientists at the European Space Agency created their own regolith by crushing a very old meteorite. The dust from this meteorite was turned into a mixture that was used to 3D print Lego parts.

“No one has ever built structures on the Moon, so it was great to be able to test a variety of designs and construction techniques with our space bricks. It was both fun and useful for the scientific understanding of the limits of these technologies,” said ESA researcher Aidan Cowley.

Humanity is closer than ever to establishing the first real lunar base. NASA has teamed up with the Italian Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space Corporation to build the first permanent human outpost on the Moon, although it won’t happen until the early 2030s.