Future astronauts to EAT asteroids in mind-boggling plan revealed by scientists.

ASTRONAUTS in the future could eat asteroids in a mind-boggling plan revealed by top scientists.

In the bizarre-sounding scheme, bacteria reared on ground-up asteroids would be used to make a nutritionally perfect milkshake or yoghurt.

Although astronauts on the International Space Station have done experiments with growing salad leaves, most of the food consumed in space has to be transported from Earth.

This would be impossible to do for longer-lasting and more distant missions in outer space.

With that problem in mind, Joshua Pearce, at Western University in Ontario, Canada, along with his colleagues decided to research the possibility of using bacteria as a way to convert carbon-containing compounds from asteroids into edible food.

While the scientists have yet to carry out this process using real asteroids, Pearce and his team have carried out similar experiments using bacteria to break down plastic from leftover army ration packs.