There is now life on the Moon.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as ... -1.5238831

Thousands of ancient, eight-legged, nigh-indestructible creatures have crash-landed on the moon — and they'll probably be there long after the human species is wiped off the face of the Earth.

They're called tardigrades, and 10,000 of them were suspended in artificial amber and loaded onto an Israeli spacecraft that crashed onto the moon in April.

"Tardigrade is one of the, if not the, most durable forms of life that we know of. They're ancient, multicellular, nearly indestructible, microscopic organisms that have survived all five mass extinctions on Earth," Nova Spivack, whose organization shipped the creatures into space, told As It Happens guest host Piya Chattopadhyay.

"And now there are some of them on the moon."

'Backing up planet Earth'

Spivack​​​​ is the founder and CEO of the Arch Mission Foundation, a non-profit with a mission of "backing up planet Earth."

To this end, they created a "lunar library" with a 30-million-page archive of human history "etched into nickel films," as well as millions of cells, human DNA, and tardigrades in suspended animation.

That library was part of the payload aboard the Israel Aerospace Industries spacecraft Beresheet, which attempted to land on the moon in the spring of this year.

This photo was taken by the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet about 22 kilometres above the moon's surface as it prepared to land. It crash-landed after its engine shut off before reaching the surface. (SpaceIL)
The mission was a flub. Instead of landing, it crashed onto the surface. But a recent analysis suggests the impact was not great enough to vaporize the ship's payload, Spivack said.

"Best case, our payload is completely intact resting somewhere on a slope on the side of a mountain on the moon. Worst case, maybe it was shattered into some number of pieces," Spivack said.

Either way, he said, "it wouldn't kill or destroy these tardigrades."

Also known as 'water bears' or 'moss piglets'

That's because tardigrades are tough.

Colloquially known as "water bears" or "moss piglets," these creatures are believed to have been on Earth for about 500 million years.

They can be found in water and moss all over the world, grow to about 0.55 millimetres and are considered the most resilient form of life on our planet.

They can live up to 30 years without water and survive in the extremes — including the vacuum of space or in the farthest depths of our oceans.

When they're deprived of water, they shrivel up and enter a deep state of suspended animation, dramatically slowing their metabolism to the degree that they appear dead.

But when you reintroduce them to water — even years or decades later — they reanimate.

'Frozen in time, essentially, forever'

The ones on the moon are still in that suspended state, Spivack said.

"They wouldn't be able to move around on the moon or reproduce independently," he said. "They're in a state of suspended animation, frozen in time, essentially, forever on the moon unless they are recovered."

That has some people in the scientific community upset.

"What it means is the so-called 'pristine environment' of the moon has been broken," Monica Grady, an Open University professor of planetary and space sciences, told the BBC.

"I don't think anybody would have got permission to distribute dehydrated tardigrades over the surface of the moon. So it's not a good thing."

Spivack shrugged off those concerns, noting that all space missions, both private and public, leave things behind.

"We're certainly not the first to land biological organisms on the moon. We're simply the first to land organisms that are technically still alive," he said.

Forget cockroaches — these little guys will live until the sun begins to die

The Arch Mission Foundation has no intention of retrieving its lost critters.

"Recovering them would be a painstaking exercise with tweezers and a microscope sifting through perhaps hundreds of kilometres of lunar dust," he said. "But if somebody wants to do it, we support them in that effort."

Otherwise, he said the water bears will probably be there long after we're gone.

"One possibility is that, you know, life on Earth gets wiped out in the sixth great extinction that's happening now, or the next one, or the one after that," Spivack said.

"And at some point in the future, some other form of life evolves, goes to the moon, finds the lunar library and recovers tardigrades."

Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from Nicole Mortillaro. Interview with Nova Spivack produced by Richard Raycraft.

So yeah. Humans have now permanently seeded life on the Moon.

[Isolder74]

Here you go!

http://badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?cc ... 4188614811

http://badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?cc ... 3905127601

[Solauren]

Since the 'water bears' can't reproduce, and have no food source, and will essentially be in near-stasis until they starve to death, I wouldn't call this life on the moon.

More like animal abuse

[SpottedKitty]

Didn't this sort of thing happen at least once before? The Apollo 12 mission brought back parts of the Surveyor 3 lunar probe, and I remember reading that viable (Earth) bacteria were found in the insulating foam inside the parts. Although it wasn't AFAIK possible to tell whether the bugs had got there due to clean room failures in the construction of the Surveyor or in the Apollo labs. It's also hard to guess how much longer they would have lasted; the Surveyor mission was in April 1967, Apollo 12 was in November 1969.

[Sky Captain]

Maybe this will turn into a some kiind of science experiment if a later mission collects the pieces to bring back for study.