Recreating the fragrance of the Moon in a lab...

Most animals use odours to locate food, find mates, maintain social bonds and avoid enemies. Humans are relatively poorly equipped to do any of this, because we have a lot fewer olfactory receptors than dogs or elephants, for example. Many people fail to appreciate how important smells are for the enhancement of their lives.

This photograph shows me at work as an ‘aroma sculptor’ in the laboratory at my house in a village near Toulouse, in southern France. Here, I’m working on creating the smell of the Moon for an exhibition at Space City, a museum in Toulouse. I based the odour I manufactured – like that of spent gunpowder — on Buzz Aldrin’s description of what he smelt when he took off his helmet in the lunar module on the Moon in 1969...


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01301-9