Bacteria can survive for at least three-years in space, study shows

With extreme temperatures, low pressure and radiation, it has been proved that life-forms that somehow find themselves in the outer space can quickly be killed. However, in break-through research, scientists have recently found that some bacteria can withstand that harsh environment and can survive for at least three years. According to a research report published in Frontiers in Microbiology, scientists found that microbes can travel from one planet to another, seeding life on arrival. 

Microbes huddled in the heart of balls of Deinococcus bacteria as thin as five sheets of paper have survived on the exterior of the International Space States for three years, the researcher said. They informed that such microbial arks might be able to drift among planets, spreading life through the universe, a concept known as ‘panspermia’. The recent research marked the first study to show that microbes can survive this long ‘unprotected’.

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Margaret Cramm, a microbiologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, reportedly said that the study suggests ‘life can survive on its own in space as a group’. According to the research, Akihiko Yamagishi, an astrobiologist at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Tokyo and who also led the study, sent dried pallets of Deinococcus, which is a radiation-resistant bacteria that thrive in extreme places such as the stratosphere, to space in 2015. 

‘Enough time to get to Mars’ 

The researchers informed that the bacteria were stuffed into small wells in metal plates, which NASA astronaut Scott Kelly affixed to the exterior of the space station, and samples were sent back to Earth each year. The researchers rehydrated the pellets, gave them bacteria food and waited for growth. After three long years in space, the bacteria in 100-micrometre-thick pallet didn’t make it, however, the dead cells shielded inner microbes from hazards of space and approximately 4 per cent of the microbes in those larger pallets survived. 

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After the microbes survived three years in space, Yamagishi now estimates that 1,000-micrometer pellets could survive eight years floating through space. “That’s enough time to potentially get to Mars,” he said. The researcher informed that some of the speediest, but less common, estimates of flight time of meteors between Earth and mars suggest trip could be made in a few months to years. 

Yamagishi said, “How exactly clumps of microbes could get expelled into space remains unclear. They might get kicked up by small meteorites, or ejected into space by thunderstorm-induced perturbations to Earth’s magnetic field”. He added, "But such a trip could happen”. He also said that his ‘ultimate dream’ is when and if microbial life is discovered on Mars, he hopes to look for evidence of such a cosmic journey. 

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