Russian Scientists Claim That Algae Lives On ISS Exterior (Update)
Sea creatures are discovered living on the exterior of the ISS, Daily Mail
“Traces of plankton and other microorganisms have been found living on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), according to Russian space officials. They claim the plankton were not carried there at launch – but are thought to have been blown there by air currents on Earth. Incredibly, the tiny organisms were found to be able to survive in the vacuum of space despite the freezing temperatures, lack of oxygen and cosmic radiation. The discovery was made during a routine spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts Olek Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov, who were launching nanosatellites into space.
They used wipes to polish the surface of windows – also known as illuminators – on the Russian segment of the ISS and later found the presence of plankton and other microorganisms using ‘high-precision equipment’.
Keith’s note: I’m certain that were I to ask CASIS or the ISS National Laboratory folks for a peer-reviewed publication for these results that they’d be more than happy to comply, right? And if this news story is not true, I should expect an equally swift statement to that effect, right? Astrobiologists ought to be jumping up and down about this – if it is true, that is.
NASA, Russia Squabble Over International Space Station Sea Plankton Claim, Forbes
“As far as we’re concerned, we haven’t heard any official reports from our Roscosmos (Russia’s space agency) colleagues that they’ve found sea plankton,” NASA spokesman Dan Huot told Space.com. “What they’re actually looking for is residues that can build up on the visually sensitive elements, like windows, as well as just the hull of the ship itself that will build up whenever they do thruster firings for things like re-boosts. That’s what they were taking samples for. I don’t know where all the sea plankton talk is coming from.”
It may be possible for marine microorganisms that are already adrift in the atmosphere to diffuse up to the ISS’s altitude in a dormant state. It’s already known that tardigrades can survive the vacuum of space as well as ionizing radiation. So, theoretically there could exist an ecosystem; but everything would be dormant. Another explanation for this discovery is diatomaceous earth, if it was used when the module was manufactured, or was set adrift during spacewalks.
No …. no ecosystem is going to thrive out there in a hard vacuum, with high heat extremes, radiation, and a hard no water. Tardigrades “survive” because they become utterly inert – and only do so under specific conditions created by experimenters. Something got lost in translation.
Tardigrades adrift in atmosphere would be going at different velocity than ISS.
It’s inert vegetable matter impacting the hull at hypervelocity.
So what would such dehydrated tardigrades [from 85% water to just 3% water content] and say thousands of these tiny creatures impacting, look like?
Well, I’m highly skeptical of the claims. It is a remarkable claim to have been made by “high-precision equipment” only two days after the spacewalk in question. One would expect some weeks of validation of the results from the “high-precision equipment”.
I seem to remember that a small organism called a ‘water bear’ or Tardigrade survived for a long while in an exposure box on the outside of Mir. So, wouldn’t surprise me if this is true. The smaller and more primitive the life-form, the tougher they seem to be. It isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that the late Fred Hoyle was onto something!
That said, a peer-reviewed paper on the subject would certainly be nice before we get too excited.
On the flip side… To grow, the algae would presumably need at least water. From where? Could there be a leak or water vapour somehow aspiring through the hull?
Cosmos taught me the Tardigrade can survive in space for very long periods 🙂
If I were Box, my reply would be: “Fish, plankton, sea greens… Protein from the sea!
I wonder how many people here would know where that reference came from. LOL
I do!! One of my childhood favorite movies..
Ikr! When I was a kid and saw this movie, I asked my mom if I could live in the mall.
Do they have a Carrousel??
Well, if they ever send up the ISS Centrifuge Demonstrator….. 🙂
Best. Robot. Ever.
Life! Don’t talk to ME about life!
So how do they know that whatever they found on the wipes were not contamination from the Russian EVA suit and gloves? They certainly are out in the open environment of the interior of the Russian docking compartments. Did the Russian cosmonauts don sterile gloves before cleaning the windows? Were the used wipes sealed in previously sterile bags immediately after use? I can’t believe this was even published.
“[H]igh-precision equipment.”
Reminds me of another conversation between Major Eaton and Indiana Jones:
-We have top men working on it right now.
-Who?
-Top….men.
Not sure how CASIS or ISS could provide a peer-reviewed paper for what the Russians ostensibly found just a few days ago….
Exactly.
When all is said and done I suspect we’ll find that somebody didn’t wipe-ski their shoe-skis on the floor mat at Baikonur.
The interiors of Mir and some areas of ISS trapped moisture as condensation from the air onto cool surfaces, and quickly developed biofilms, tenacious layers of bacteria and algae that form wherever moisture, air and light are present. These biofilms could become adherent to gloves or EVA equipment, or could escape from trash containers released from MIR, resulting in quite a bit of external contamination. The ISS is said to be much cleaner than MIR. The organisms are probably freeze-dried on exposure to vacuum, but some may be viable if rehydrated.