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| Not the same, but Tardigrades have survived in outer space |
The Independent - A new report claims that Russian scientists have discovered traces of marine life living on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS).
Vladimir Solovyev, the official in charge of Russia’s ISS segment, told the news agency Itar-Tass that tiny plankton and microscopic organisms had been discovered on the spacecraft's exterior, describing the finds as “absolutely unique”.
However, the truthfulness of Solovyev's claim is unclear, with Nasa refusing to confirm the story. “As far as we're concerned, we haven't heard any official reports from our Roscosmos colleagues that they've found sea plankton," Nasa spokesperson Dan Huot told Space.com.
Huot confirmed that Russian cosmonauts had been taking samples from the windows on their side of the ISS, but clarified that they'd only been looking for “residues that can build up on the visually sensitive elements. I don't know where all the sea plankton talk is coming from,” Huot added.
Although the reports from Itar-Tass have not been confirmed, the idea of life existing in the harsh environment of space (surviving cosmic radiation, freezing temperatures and zero gravity) is quite possible.
The almost indestructible tardigrades
A study in January 2013 found evidence of microbial life five to ten miles above the surface of the planet, while a type of microscopic invertebrate known as a tardigrade has even survived the vacuum of space for 10 days, shrugging radiation exposure a hundred times necessary to kill humans.
So while it’s possible that some sort of terrestrial life has been hanging out on the side, it’s not at all clear how – if the reports are confirmed – they got up there. It could be that they arrived via some contaminated space modules but Solovyev himself suggested that they might have come from “rising air currents, which settle on the surface of the station”.
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The following report is from August 23, 2010
British scientists find a microbacterium which can live in SPACE
Bacteria taken from cliffs at Beer on the South Coast have shown themselves to be hardy space travellers. The bugs were put on the exterior of the space station to see how they would cope in the hostile conditions that exist above the Earth's atmosphere. And when scientists inspected the microbes a year and a half later, they found many were still alive.
These survivors are now thriving in a laboratory at the Open University (OU) in Milton Keynes. The experiment is part of a quest to find microbes that could be useful to future astronauts who venture beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the rest of the Solar System. OU researcher Dr Karen Olsson-Francis told BBC News: "It has been proposed that bacteria could be used in life-support systems to recycle everything.
"There is also the concept that if we were to develop bases on the Moon or Mars, we could use bacteria for 'bio-mining' - using them to extract important minerals from rocks." This type of research also plays into the popular theory that micro-organisms can somehow be transported between the planets in rocks - in meteorites - to seed life where it does not yet exist.
These survivors are now thriving in a laboratory at the Open University (OU) in Milton Keynes. The experiment is part of a quest to find microbes that could be useful to future astronauts who venture beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the rest of the Solar System. OU researcher Dr Karen Olsson-Francis told BBC News: "It has been proposed that bacteria could be used in life-support systems to recycle everything.
"There is also the concept that if we were to develop bases on the Moon or Mars, we could use bacteria for 'bio-mining' - using them to extract important minerals from rocks." This type of research also plays into the popular theory that micro-organisms can somehow be transported between the planets in rocks - in meteorites - to seed life where it does not yet exist.
"Gloeocapsa forms a colony of multiple cells that probably protects cells in the centre to exposure from UV radiation and provides some desiccation resistance as well," explained Professor Charles Cockell, who works with Dr Olsson-Francis in the OU's Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute.
"We could send up the spores of known 'extremophiles' and we can be pretty sure they will survive because we know already they're really resistant," Dr Olsson-Francis told BBC News. "Whereas in this case, we just used a community to select for these organisms. These are just everyday organisms that live on the coast in Beer in Devon and they can survive in space."
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September 2013
Alien microbes found floating in the stratosphere
The "alien microbes" were found on a specially designed balloon that was sent 27 km or 16 miles into the stratosphere during the recent Perseid meteor shower.
"Most people will assume that these biological particles must have just drifted up to the stratosphere from Earth, but it is generally accepted that a particle of the size found cannot be lifted from Earth to heights of, for example, 27 km. The only known exception is by a violent volcanic eruption, none of which occurred within three years of the sampling trip," Wainwright said.
And since there are no other events explaining the presence of microbes out in space, researchers believe that these microbes could be the proof that life exists elsewhere.
"Our conclusion then is that life is continually arriving to Earth from space, life is not restricted to this planet and it almost certainly did not originate here," Wainwright added, according to a press release.
Read more - http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/4073/20130920/alien-microbes-found-floating-stratosphere.htm
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Extremophiles - How they survive
Read more - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21923937
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