Space Lichens

moon_monkey writes "According to a report lichens - a composite of algae and fungi - can survive in space for up to two weeks. An experiment carried out by the European Space Agency saw two species of lichen carried into orbit and then exposed to the vacuum of space for nearly 15 days. These are the most complex form of life now known to have survived prolonged exposure to space. The experiment adds weight to the theory of panspermia - that life could somehow be transported between planets."

Comments

Adds weight?

[MosesJones]

But not much, 2 weeks doesn't even get you to Mars... I thought most of the theories of life coming from other planets were based around elements being embedded inside rocks etc rather than being directly exposed to space.

But it is nice to see Europe continuing to treat Space as a learning experience rather than a PR stunt.

an organic spaceship patch kit?

[swanriversean]

FTA:
"Lichens have a tough mineral coating that could shield them from UV rays. They are also made from individual organisms layered on top of one another, so outer layers may provide protection for underlying cells. The organisms have already been shown to be capable of withstand high levels of UV radiation on Earth."

This is interesting, I wonder how well they the outer layers could protect things below? Would it be possible to use some lichen in a pinch to make a repair to part of a ship? Could this be the poor mans self-replicating nano robot patch kit?

I have no idea about these things, just an interesting prospect, I think.

Feasibility of Panspermia

[sssmashy]

Even if a lichen or lower life form could survive for a time in the vacuum of space (with some form of protection from radiation and in hibernation mode), could it really survive the intense heat from the friction of earth's atmosphere? I've heard of extremophiles, but...

Re:Feasibility of Panspermia

[Decaff]

What I've never understood about that theory, though, is how the life forms got off their home planet and onto an interstellar-bound rock.

Asteroid strikes. They can 'splash' up a lot of material, which can easily reach escape velocity.

No, sorry...

[millennial]

The experiment adds weight to the theory of panspermia - that life could somehow be transported between planets.

I'll believe that as soon as they finish the experiments that show lichen's ability to survive entry into the atmosphere.

I don't get panspermia

[Astronomypete]

Someone please help me with this theory.

If life came to this planet, from another planet, where did the life come from?
How was life created on another planet?

Forget the question whether it could survive in space.

Answer the question how was life created.

Answers on a postcard please.

---
Troll On!

Re:They needed space to test a vacuum?

[RoffleTheWaffle]

Substances like water, carbon, and oxygen are neat because they seem to be the most condusive to forming complex substances that make up the organic components of the bodies of living things. It's silly to think that there aren't living things that can exist without water, though. Or carbon. Or oxygen.

Theories about the possible environments wherein living things could exist are endless. Looking at the extremophilic algae and tube worms - That was the name you were looking for, I believe - here on Earth, we could see similar creatures living in the hot, highly acidic, CO2 rich environments of Venus. Lichens and other organisms tailored to exist only on the essentials, on the other hand, could thrive - and may actually exist - on Mars. (And if Mars was once like Earth, that theory certainly takes off, doesn't it?) Of course, those schools of thought only support organisms akin to the ones that exist here on Earth.

Meanwhile, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn provide a plethora of environments known to support life on Earth in some cases, but there are also theories that organisms could exist in the extreme cold of some of these celestial bodies by catalyzing acetylene and other volatile substances at extremely slow rates. If that theory were to pan out, then the idea of 'ice creatures from outer space' might not be too far off - and possibly a springboard for dozens of cheesy new sci-fi movies. (It'd certainly beat Spielburg's take on 'War of the Worlds'.)

While we're discussing theoretical models for living things unlike those that exist here on Earth, let's take a look at what we're made of - that all-important element carbon, I'm no chemistry expert, but doesn't boron nitride behave in a remarkably similar fashion to carbon? What about the possibility of a boron-based group of organisms? Or maybe plants and animals composed of different substances entirely? When one begins to consider the possibilities, it becomes immediately evident that they are indeed virtually endless.

The void of space may indeed host living things. Other worlds thought to be uninhabitable may also support life as well. I agree that it'd be pretty silly to disregard that possibility until we can conclusively prove that life simply can't thrive in these environments. Heck, maybe there's some kind of lichen out in some nebula somewhere, feeding off of plasma... Who knows.

panspermia, evolution

[J05H]

Lichen are tough. We all knew that. What we didn't know was how tough - this is incredible news. 15 days exposed in LEO and the samples were still viable? That indicates, to me, that lichen not only "happen" to be able to survive in space, but that the base organism evolved in space and transported to Earth continually until conditions allowed it to survive here. The description of lichen as protected by minerals in exo would indicate that they are capable of forming protected mats and still photosynthesize. The abstract didn't cover it all, did the lichen hibernate or photosynthesize? I'm not sure, but the basic survival fact is huge evidence in support of panspermia, universal left-handed chirality and biology as a basic element of the universe.

Photos from Mars show patches of greenish-brown and blue-green on rocks, cliffs and in low-lying (higher pressure) regions. The Deep Impact mission showed almost 1/3rd the mass of the comet as carbonaceous material, the researchers claim it is prebiotic. Photos from both Viking I (Gil Levin photo) and both MER rovers show "fuzzy" greenish rocks and fine filamented structures. If lichen survive in open space, they would be that much more at home in a fluffy growing medium that contains lots of water, and with a few archaea in the mix would produce exactly the compounds found in comet Tempel 1.

I've always agreed with the tenets of panspermia, the last few months of space science has convinced me. There is life out there, and a lot of it.

Josh

Fun note: the craft that flew the BIOPAN experiment is a Foton capsule, a direct decendant of the capsule Yuri Gagarin flew in. It is a round metal ball with a donut of equipment on the back and some antennae, same layout with somewhat newer gear.

Re:panspermia, evolution

[corblix]

15 days exposed in LEO and the samples were still viable? That indicates, to me, that lichen not only "happen" to be able to survive in space, but that the base organism evolved in space and transported to Earth continually until conditions allowed it to survive here.

Maybe. The problem is the evidence works both ways. In particular, this space-based lichen also has the ability to survive, long-term, in a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, at temperatures a bit above the freezing point of water. In fact, it actually does better in such an environment than in its native vacuum environment. So maybe the real truth is that it actually evolved in such an environment, and not in a vacuum.

I'm not trying to belittle your ideas here. I'm just saying that the place where an organism survives best is a good bet to be its native environment. And vacuum doesn't fit the bill for lichen.

On the other hand, it is possible that what we have here is an organism that mostly hangs out on planetary surfaces, in an atmosphere, and occasionally makes successful trips through vacuum. But such trips would necessarily be very long: years (at least) within the Solar System, millennia between stars. So the real question is whether lichen (or whatever) can be freeze dried for a while and then brought back to life by the presence of a favorable environment. The next experiment they need to do is to stick some lichen out in space for a year or so, then dump it in a nice tropical environment and see what happens.

Dolphins!

[Anonymous Coward]

What about dolphins. They can hold their breath for a real long time. Probably could do it in space too! We should really start releasing dolphins into space to see how long they can survive, because maybe they evolved on another planet which got destroyed - but they traveled to our planet through space. Maybe.

Panspermia Makes Evolution Much Less Likely

[billstewart]

There are really three different cases for PanSpermia - Interplanetary, Interstellar Accidental, and Friendly Space Aliens. The Scientific American article and the Space Lichens experiment are exploring the possibility that carbon-based lifeforms or at least useful pre-life chemicals could have been transported between planets, at least from Mars to Earth, and while that possibility would be necessary for Interstellar Panspermia to work, it's not sufficient - surviving on a trip from Mars to Earth is much less strenuous than surviving a trip of tens or hundreds of light-years, and the probability that there are enough partially-evolved planets blowing up and splattering their Precious Bodily Fluids around that significant quantities of hit hit the Earth at a time that Earth was chemically ready to accept it sound highly unlikely.

The standard evolutionary model says that Earth had a bunch of Primordial Soup that cooked for hundreds of millions of years until some of it did stuff that was interesting enough to photosynthesize, which started radically changing the chemistry of the planet's atmosphere and the Soup until more of it started doing more interesting stuff and eventually it was interesting enough that we can declare that "It's Alive!" The probability that stars will have planets, and that they'll have the right conditions to let this happen (temperature, available atomic mixtures, gravity, etc.) are pretty low, and people who like to speculate about how heavily populated the universe is and when we'll find aliens come up with estimates like Drake's Equation to try to guess how rare we are.

Interplanetary Panspermia suggests that not only did Earth have to have the right mixture of chemicals and temperature/pressure conditions in the Primordial Soup for all this to happen, but that Mars or maybe Venus also had to have a (presumably different) batch of soup cooking that had either become Alive or else pretty close, and something had to cause a Big Splash to get some Martian Soup mixed in with the Earth Soup at a time that both of them were in the right conditions. If the Earth had been running too far ahead or behind in time, or the Big Splash hadn't happened at the right time or hadn't been big enough, then the Martians would have been told No Soup For You, Next Billion Years , Earth wouldn't have been alive, and Mars would have done the Cosmic Wimpout without us evolving to see it today. Drake's Equation looks much more dodgy under those assumptions. If that's what it takes for life to evolve, I don't expect any space aliens to show up any time soon.

Interplanetary Panspermia doesn't really solve any problems about how life could have evolved, though I suppose it *could* have happened, but it seems much less likely than Earth's Primordial Soup doing the job on its own. Interstellar Panspermia seems much much less likely to me, for reasons I noted above. There's a huge amount of stellar evolution that had to happen just to get the right elements into the Solar System, since some of them only get formed inside supernovae or similar stars. Friendly Space Aliens deliberately seeding the place begs the question of how *they* evolved, but strikes me as no less likely than Interstellar Panspermia happening by accident. You'd think they'd have also left a message, but maybe they were just shooting stuff out at likely stars on spec, hoping that something would work even if they weren't around four billion years later when we were ready to Phone Home, or maybe they really *are* hanging around on the Dark Side of the Moon working on the next chapter of their cookbook before they drop in for a visit.