Scientists Find Traces of Sea Plankton On ISS Surface

schwit1 sends this report from the ITAR-TASS News Agency: An experiment of taking samples from illuminators and the ISS surface has brought unique results, as scientists had found traces of sea plankton there, the chief of an orbital mission on Russia's ISS segment told reporters. Results of the scope of scientific experiments which had been conducted for a quite long time were summed up in the previous year, confirming that some organisms can live on the surface of the International Space Station for years amid factors of a space flight, such as zero gravity, temperature conditions and hard cosmic radiation. Several surveys proved that these organisms can even develop. He noted that it was not quite clear how these microscopic particles could have appeared on the surface of the space station.

Comments

Shocked I tell you...shocked!

[djupedal]

Terrestrial materials found on object made of terrestrial materials.

Re:This actually makes perfect sense.

[Anubis IV]

Are you suggesting that a freak occurrence like a sea breeze may be occurring at a coastal location like Cape Canaveral, Florida? And that it may have even reached as far inland as the VAB, which is where the ISS capsule would have been loaded into the shuttle's cargo bay? And that the VAB, which has the largest doors anywhere in the world so that fully-loaded space vehicles can be carried out on the crawler transporter in one piece, may have allowed such contaminated air to get inside?

Absurdity and nonsense! Surely they would've planned for something like that!

Which is all to say, I quite agree with you, since it seems like the most obvious time and place that sea life could have been deposited on any of the equipment. After all, they spend days or weeks inside the VAB, which is one of the largest buildings by volume in the world. So large, in fact, that rain clouds have formed inside, and that water has to come from somewhere...such as the nearby ocean water that contains plankton.

Re:nuke it in orbit...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

what makes you so sure it is of terrestrial origins?

Unless this is Star Trek, where the entire biodiversity of the galaxy can be accounted for by face paint and is sexually interoperable with starfleet captains, we can make an overwhelmingly likely inference based on the chemistry. If its DNA and assorted important chemistry closely matches a terrestrial species it is very likely to be from around here.

Re:But is it really plankton?

[Tuidjy]

Let see.

Did viable Space Plankton drift from outer space to the ISS as it was orbiting Earth, and just happened to be DNA-identical to the one that has been living (and maybe evolving) in Earth's seas?

Or was Sea Plankton carried by the wind to the hold of the vehicle carrying these components up from cape Canaveral?

Oh, my... so hard to decide which is more likely.