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AGXStarseed

Well-Known Member
(Not written by me)

THE tiny pig-like creatures which smashed into the Moon could survive there for up to 30 years, experts said yesterday.

Several thousand “tardigrades”, known as moss piglets, were on an Israeli lunar probe which crashed in April.

Scientists believe the microscopic invertebrates are still alive as they are one of the most indestructible species known to man.

The creatures, also called “water bears”, can survive heat of 150C or being frozen to absolute zero.

Nova Spivack, one of the scientists who sent them into space, said: “We believe the chances of survival are extremely high.

“Tardigrades are ideal to include because they are microscopic, multicellular and one of the most durable forms of life on Earth.”

Several thousand were on the Beresheet robot lander spacecraft when it hit the lunar surface at high speed on April 11.

NINTCHDBPICT000511805670.jpg

Tardigrades can survive heat of 150C or being frozen to absolute zero

Alongside the tardigrades were 30 million pages of information, including human DNA samples.

It belonged to The Arch Mission Foundation, which regularly sends a “back-up” of knowledge and biology to space in case of apocalypse.

Moss piglets became the first creatures to survive in space during an experiment 12 years ago. They have been compared to kids’ TV classic The Clangers, the flutey-voiced woollen aliens who live on a moon-like planet.

INDESTRUCTIBLE INVERTEBRATES
IT'S no surprise the tardigrades have survived as they are one of Earth’s most indestructible creatures.
  • THEY are tiny invertebrates, under 1mm long, that live in the harshest of conditions.
  • THEY have been found in the sea, mountaintops, mud volcanoes and rainforests.
  • THEIR closest relatives are arthropods — such as insects, spiders and crustaceans.
  • THEY boast a well-developed head, stout body with unjointed limbs and sharp claws.
  • GERMAN zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze dubbed the species “little water bears” in 1773.

Prof Lewis Dartnell, of the University of Westminster, said the moss piglets will currently be in a state of “suspended animation”.

He added: “They’ve been known to survive the vacuum of space and high doses of radiation. They can live for years like this. However, they will not be crawling around.

“They are easy to find in your back garden. They live in damp little crevices - you can spot them with a toy shop microscope.”

Dr Francisco Diego Quintana, a physics lecturer at University College London, said they could live on the Moon for up to 30 years.

But he warned of the dangers of sending creatures to space. He said there may be ancient life already there, adding: “If we start contaminating then it is a major problem.”

Astronomers have uncovered 39 previously “invisible” galaxies, formed during the first two billion years of the universe — the first multiple discovery of its kind.


Source: Tiny 'moss piglets' in moon crash could survive there 30 years, scientists claim

Additional: The indestructible 'water bears' stuck on the moon
 
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Reading about this story reminds me a bit of an episode of Life After People, which was a TV series broadcast between 2008 and 2010 that showed what would happen if all humans suddenly disappeared from Earth, and what would happen to the world we leave behind from as little as an hour to as long as 100,000,000 years.
In the Season 2 episode "Sky's the Limit", part of the episode focuses on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. In this version of events, the Cassini probe's mission ends but - with no humans around to direct the probe to destroy itself - the probe drifts along and eventually crashes into Enceladus; one of Saturn's moons that is covered in ice and possibly has an ocean underneath.
Extremophile Bacteria that was present on the Cassini Probe eventually begins to evolve in Enceladus' oceans and eventually evolve into more complex life forms - with the moon been terraformed into a new Green and Blue world.
 
Yes but why does it have an old style phone dial in the middle of it's face? Can live in the harshest conditions but hasn't got around to using modern technology. It will never conquer the universe that way.
No that's a stamp so everything it runs into will have it's stamp on it.
 
From what I've read, they're all in their dehydrated state, which causes them to enter suspended animation - so they won't be spreading or multiplying any time soon.
It'll certainly be interesting to retrieve them in a few decades to see how living on the moon for a while has affected them. With America planning to return to the moon in the future, maybe NASA's astronauts (with approval from Israel) could be the ones to collect them.
 
By coincidence I was just joking yesterday about Water Bears becoming the dominant species on earth after seeing new member bellacat's artwork.

crystal_ball.jpg


Curious, I brought the matter to Mysterio the ALL seeing. He said 'It was no coincidence. I accidently left the ALL seeing crystal ball plugged in. And what is more the several thousand Tardigrades will break out of their capsule and evolve hyper fast because of some unforeseen advantage in the moon environment. Then they will float across the expanse of space in their built-in space suits by the millions. The first stop will be the space lab in Israel where they are gonna kick the scientist's butt for sending them to the freaking moon.
 
220px-Water_Detected_at_High_Latitudes_on_the_Moon.jpg
Image of the Moon taken by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper. Blue shows the spectral signature of hydroxide, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the Sun and red shows a mineral called pyroxene.

Water may have been delivered to the Moon over geological timescales by the regular bombardment of water-bearing comets, asteroids and meteoroids [12] or continuously produced in situ by the hydrogen ions (protons) of the solar wind impacting oxygen-bearing minerals.

Tardigrades may be able in future to exist on the moon.

Lunar water - Wikipedia
 
220px-Water_Detected_at_High_Latitudes_on_the_Moon.jpg
Image of the Moon taken by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper. Blue shows the spectral signature of hydroxide, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the Sun and red shows a mineral called pyroxene.

Water may have been delivered to the Moon over geological timescales by the regular bombardment of water-bearing comets, asteroids and meteoroids [12] or continuously produced in situ by the hydrogen ions (protons) of the solar wind impacting oxygen-bearing minerals.

Tardigrades may be able in future to exist on the moon.

Lunar water - Wikipedia

Most curious indeed. :)

If this is the case and they are indeed able to survive and develop, maybe one day they'll evolve into a form similar to the Selenites of H. G. Well's novel, "The First Men in the Moon".
(If that ended up being the case, who knows - maybe by that time we will be traveling the galaxy in gravity-defying spheres. :D)

 
220px-Water_Detected_at_High_Latitudes_on_the_Moon.jpg
Image of the Moon taken by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper. Blue shows the spectral signature of hydroxide, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the Sun and red shows a mineral called pyroxene.

Water may have been delivered to the Moon over geological timescales by the regular bombardment of water-bearing comets, asteroids and meteoroids [12] or continuously produced in situ by the hydrogen ions (protons) of the solar wind impacting oxygen-bearing minerals.

Tardigrades may be able in future to exist on the moon.

Lunar water - Wikipedia

Am I correct in assuming the black stripes or gaps in color is the cheese part?
 

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