Earthly life forms survived 533 days outside the ISS – this could indicate extraterrestrial life

The ISS (International Space Station)https://twitter.com/Astro_Alex (Alexander Gerst, ESA Astronaut)

It's a question that has fascinated people for hundreds of years: are we alone in the universe – or is there extraterrestrial life in the infinite vastness of the world? # 39; space?

Researcher A German Aerospace Center (DLR) recently discovered in an experiment on the ISS: Some organisms on the Earth can apparently survive even in Martian conditions. At least on the red planet of the desert, life seems theoretically possible.

Researchers test organisms under Mars conditions on the ISS

As part of the Biomex experiment (Biology and Mars Experiment), researchers sent hundreds of samples of organisms to the International Space Station (ISS) between 2014 and 2016, where they were tested in Martian conditions.

Bacteria, algae, lichens and fungi were exposed to vacuum, intense UV radiation and extreme temperature differences in an experimental box on an outer platform of the ISS for 533 days in total.

In the Biomex experiment area, several hundred samples of organisms have been exposed onboard the MAR conditions of the ISS.DLR"Some organisms and biomolecules have shown tremendous radiation resistance in open spaces and have actually returned from space on Earth," said Jean-Pierre Paul de Vera of the DLR Planetary Research Institute in Berlin.

Examples of organisms that have survived in adverse conditions include archaea. Unicellular microorganisms have been on Earth for more than three and a half billion years. "Such unicellular organisms would be candidates for life forms we could imagine on Mars, "de Vera says.

Results indicate that life on Mars is missing

His conclusion: In principle, some creatures that occur on Earth in extreme environmental conditions seem to exist on Mars. "Of course, that does not mean that life is really going on Mars," Vera said.

But that reinforces a hypothesis about the solar system, scientists have been around Discuss for decades. The theory of panspermia badumes that life on earth comes from space. According to an asteroid, the impact on Mars allowed evacuating organisms from the planet and sending them into the internal solar system. There, some collided with the earth while meteorites and the organisms they contained continued to grow.