Microbes & Gravity

[Kitsune]

Just curious, could Microbes survive thousands of times Earth Gravity?

[The Dude]

I suspect that the gravity wouldn't crush them to death directly (at least not all of them), as at least some are small enough that self-loading is not significant.

However, the side-effects will, whether by hydrostatic pressure, rendering them immobile or disrupting the chemical reactions they depend on for survival.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I would guess no given a thousand gees is a considerable force and despite the size of your average prokaryote, they still rely on having some structure and osmosis etc. We are still witnessing the limits of bacteria as it is.

[tharkûn]

Just curious, could Microbes survive thousands of times Earth Gravity?

Not with any atmosphere present. French presses operate around 700 Atm as I recall; at thousands of g's even rarified atmosphere will exceed that handily.

Lacking atmosphere you'd then have problems with surface boiling, homeostasis, and any type of metabolism I've seen is shot to hell.

Now if you don't care about doing anything while they are being subjected to a few thousand gravities, that I think they could pull off. First you'd freeze the buggers solid, then stransport them through the high g field, and then thaw back in a gentler gravity well. If you do that then I beleive the limiting factor should be the compressive strength of ice; and I think it should be up to the task.

[Durandal]

Just curious, could Microbes survive thousands of times Earth Gravity?

I doubt they'd develop on such a planet in the first place.

[tharkûn]

I doubt they'd develop on such a planet in the first place.

No but they could hitch a ride on a probe.

[Kwizard]

I doubt they'd develop on such a planet in the first place.

No but they could hitch a ride on a probe.

And that's why we sterilize the heck out of any probes we send into deep space. But then again, I'm sure at least a few bacteria have made it over to Mars..

[tharkûn]

I don't know about Mars, but samples have been recovered from Luna from microbial hitchhikers. They were well and truly frozen, but still alive.

[Mange]

I don't know about Mars, but samples have been recovered from Luna from microbial hitchhikers. They were well and truly frozen, but still alive.

Yeah, one of the Apollo expeditions (Apollo 12, IIRC) retrieved streptococcus bacteria, from the TV camera onboard one of the Surveyor probes, that had survived.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Actually, Pathfinder to Mars was found to be contaminated. It's pretty much impossible to get a 100% sterile probe out there, so we'll just have to factor that in.