Tardigrade in Moss
2013 March 6
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| Tardigrade in Moss Image Credit & Copyright: Nicole Ottawa & Oliver Meckes / Eye of Science / Science Source Images
Explanation: Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on
Earth, the tardigrade
might be the best candidate. That's because tardigrades are known to
be able to go for decades without food or water, to survive temperatures from
near absolute zero to
well above the boiling point of water, to survive pressures from near zero to
well above that on ocean floors,
and to survive direct exposure to dangerous radiations.
The far-ranging survivability of these extremophiles
was tested in 2011
outside an orbiting space shuttle. Tardigrades are so durable
partly because they can repair their own DNA and
reduce their body water content to a few percent. Some of these miniature
water-bears almost became extraterrestrials recently when they were
launched toward to the Martian moon Phobos on board
the Russian mission Fobos-Grunt, but stayed
terrestrial when a rocket failed and the capsule remained in Earth orbit. Tardigrades
are more common than humans across most of the Earth. Pictured
above in a color-enhanced electron micrograph,
a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on moss.
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