Tardigrades - the bizarre creatures that may have survived a crash landing on the moon

Thursday, 8 August 2019

An Israeli spacecraft which crashed just moments before it was to land on the moon in April had some unusual passengers - and they might just have survived the impact.

The Beresheet spacecraft lost communication with ground control as it was making its final descent to the moon. The failure ended a 6.5 million kilometre lunar voyage, almost unprecedented in length, that was designed to conserve fuel and reduce price.

However several thousand tardigrades - also known as water bears or moss piglets - were on board as cargo and were thought to have survived.

The tiny creatures, measuring less than a millimetre, can survive extreme conditions on Earth.

'We believe the chances of survival for the tardigrades … are extremely high,' Nova Spivack, boss of the Arch Mission Foundation which organised the tardigrades' trip, told the BBC.

The hardy creatures have the ability of going into 'suspended animation' where they expel all liquid and effectively dry out. They can be 're-animated' after long periods of time, even decades.

'Tardigrades can survive pressures that are comparable to those created when asteroids strike Earth, so a small crash like this is nothing to them,' tardigrade expert Lukasz Kaczmarek told the Guardian.

He said it would be possible for the animals to survive on the moon for years - but only in their 'suspended animation' state.

- Stuff with AP