Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Scientists Find Traces of Sea Plankton On ISS Surface

Posted by Soulskill on from the space-stations-like-to-swim dept.

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.

3 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. This actually makes perfect sense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

    Many forms of sea plankton are microscopically small. They can easily become trapped within evaporated water droplets. And the ISS isn't really in the dead of space; it's still within the ionosphere, which itself consists partially of water vapor.

    So it makes perfect sense that sea plankton would end up trapped within water that evaporated from the surface of the various bodies of water on earth, and then made its way up to the upper reaches of the ionosphere, where the ISS passed through it, causing the plankton to be deposited upon the ISS.

    It's all very reasonable.

    1. Re:This actually makes perfect sense. by wkk2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If plankton was taken to the ISS via an updraft and it's viable (survived the delta V of impact). It would seem likely that impacts with passing objects that are above escape velocity could also occur. If that's true, plankton might be found all over the solar system.

  2. Re:But is it really plankton? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, the cargo ship is one possibility, but when you consider the scale of the oceans and just how close the ISS is to them: if the Pacific Ocean were a sheet of Letter sized paper, the ISS would be zipping along 1/4" above it, and the ISS has been skimming along near the Earth's surface like this for years and years.

    Now, think about hurricanes, typhoons, winter storms, and everything else that violently churns the ocean surface - aerosolizing some tiny fraction of it, but still including billions upon billions of plankton that go for a flight every year. Most fall back into the ocean, but some inevitably fly quite high....

    What would be amazing to me is if these sea-launched plankton could actually hitch a ride on the passing ISS without getting lethally damaged in the transition. I suppose that on their scale, hitting a wall moving hundreds of miles per hour might not be as disruptive as it is for larger, multicellular organisms.