• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Super bacteria' survives for three years outside space station

SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Member
Nov 6, 2017
13,744
Earth
Scientists who attached a strain of bacteria to the outside of the International Space Station have been stunned to find it survived for three years, in open space.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Deinococcus bacteria is found on Earth and has been nicknamed Conan the Bacterium by scientists for its ability to survive cold, dehydration and acid. It's known as the most radiant-resistant life form in the "Guinness Book of World Records."
It can resist 3,000 times the amount of radiation that would kill a human and was first isolated in cans of meat subjected to sterilizing radiation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Study author Akihiko Yamagishi, who is the principal investigator of the Tanpopo space mission, and his team in 2018 used an aircraft and scientific balloons to find Deinococcus bacteria that was actually floating 7.5 miles above Earth's surface.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This caused Yamagashi, also a professor of molecular biology at Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, and his team to wonder if this bacteria, which was resistant to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, could actually survive in space and even the journey to other planets through extreme temperature fluctuations and even harsher radiation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

www.cnn.com

Bacteria from Earth can survive in space and could endure the trip to Mars

A type of bacteria found on Earth that is highly resistant to radiation and other environmental hazards survived outside of the International Space Station for three years, according to a new study.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
www.bbc.com

'Super bacteria' survive for three years outside space station

Scientists are stunned that bacteria attached to the outside of the International Space Station survived for three years.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Soda

Soda

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,876
Dunedin, New Zealand
This doesn't seem to be a spore-forming bacteria. Instead, it creates a biofilm to survive the UV radiation of space. This biofilm-based survival is the same mechanism that sometimes allow bacteria to survive against antibiotics or disinfectants, simply due to sequestering a portion of the bacterial colony deeply inside outer layers of sacrificial bacteria.

With this in mind, yeah, I can absolutely see how bacteria inside a meteorite would travel between planets unscathed.
 
Last edited:
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
To be honest three years isn't very long and wouldn't be enough for any panspermia theory to be confirmed
 
RecRoulette

RecRoulette

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,044
Cowboy-Bebop-Toys-in-the-Attic-gif-001-20171207.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.