Tardigrades have free ride to moon aboard Beresheet

Water bears ... Pic courtesy Business Insider ..

When the Israeli moon probe Beresheet from the startup Space IL crashlanded on moon on 11th of April 2019, along with some biological payload, nobody thought it would be thousands on Tardigrades, tough organisms of about 0.05 inches length that took a piggy ride to moon.

The SpaceIL craft Beresheet did not have a soft landing due to an engine malfunction, however the payload which included among others thousands of Tardigrades and a CD with history of humanity, different cultures, music etc also crash landed on moon surface.

What are Tardigrades and what do they hold forth for humanity on earth in terms of spawning life on the lunar surface ?

Pic courtesy Washington Post.

Tardigrades are water-dwelling, eight legged, segmented micro organisms about .05 in in length. It is so tough that once it enters the state of cryptobiosis, it can withstand a whole lot of hostile environments that may include withstanding

• hot temperatures of upto 150 deg C
• cold temepratures upto minus 275 deg C
• entering hibernation possibly for decades
• exist in pressure atmospheres of upto 75,000 times that of atmospheric pressure
• withstand high doses of nuclear radiation etc.

Click here for a Business Insider writeup on the Tardigrades ..

Courtesy American Scientist

Cryptobiosis is a metabolic state of life entered by an organism by reducing all metabolic processes in it's body to near zero, when it encounters adverse living conditions like heat, cold, absense of oxygen, high pressure, moderate doses of nuclear radiation etc.. It can be in this cryptobiotic stage at times even for decades.- courtesy


Some interesting questions remain in this Israeli experiment.  

• What is the intent behind this Israeli experiment ?
• Is it for the first time that Tardigrades are entering lunar atmosphere ? 
• The organism is known to survive in harsh environments on earth, but what about extra terrestrial environments ?
• Even in the cryptobiosis stage on lunar surface, it will need water and oxygen to come back to activity. Will it be possible ?
• Can scientists around the world track the growth and development of these micro organisms on lunar surface and report for the benefit of earthlings here ?
• How to detect its presence on lunar surface ?

Lets hope future lunar expeditions consider this set of experiments to find presence of Tardigrades on lunar surface in their future experiments.

George..