The impregnable "water bears" that live in the moon

Today, our moon is home to perhaps thousands of the most invasive terrestrial organisms.

Objects called " tardigradesTardigradas, also known as "aquatic bears", are animals no longer than one millimeter long and can live in conditions where other organisms can not survive.

These organisms can live at a temperature of 150 ° C and can live at an absolute zero temperature (minus 273.15 ° C).

A number of them were aboard an Israeli probe that crashed on the moon in April.

One of the founders of the organization responsible for spaceflight said that he thought these creatures were still living on the moon.

The "water bears" were dried in coma before the flight and then wrapped with artificial electricity.

"We believe that the chances of survival of the tardigrada on the moon are very great," said the director of the foundation of the airline Arsh Nova Spivak. © Getty Images Tardigrada swims in the water

The Arash Foundation keeps backup copies of the planet, which encompass all areas of the humanities and biological heritage, to send them in space in case of an event likely to end life on our planet. planet.

The Israeli probe Peresheet, which crashed on the moon, carried this "lunar library" that looks like a disk DVD It contains an archive of 30 million pages, a summary of human history readable under the microscope and human DNA samples.

The probe also bore dried tarradigrades, some wrapped in artificial electricity and some wrapped in masking tape.

We know that drying automatically destroys the life of most organisms because it is almost impossible to live without water. © Getty Images When you look at the moon next time, think about these strange beings

But "water bears" – or "algae pigs" as they are also called – are by no means ordinary creatures.

They can be brought back to life after years of drying.

Scientists have discovered that tardigrades have forces that may seem supernatural.

When she dries, she pulls her head and eight limbs into her body, forming her body and entering a coma very similar to death.

He loses almost all of his water and his vital activity slows to 0.01% of his normal state.

But if she has water for decades, she can come back to life. © Getty Images The destruction of the Israeli probe can have unintended consequences: these creatures would not have existed in the moon.

All of these features, coupled with the fact that these creatures became the first to survive in space in 2007, made it the ideal candidate for inclusion in the Moon Library prepared by the Arash space mission.

"The Tardigrads are perfect creatures to be included in the library because they are multicellular microorganisms and, furthermore, one of the most adaptable and sustainable species on Earth," says Nova Spivak.

But despite the high probability that the "grass pigs" survived the crash of the Israeli probe, it's no wonder they survived on the moon.

"This means that the environment of the Virgin Moon has been polluted," says Monica Greedy, professor of space science at the London Open University.

Under the Convention on Outer Space, spacecraft must undertake not to pollute the outer environment.

"It can be said that the agreement was violated in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Pau Aldrin arrived on the moon, which is true, but since then we have become more aware of the need to preserve these celestial bodies" , she says.

"I do not think anyone was allowed to deploy dried gradients on the moon, so it's not useful anyway," she said.

If the tardigrades reach the moon, it is unlikely that they come back to life if they do not have water.

But it will be possible, at least in theory, to bring these organisms back to Earth, to revive them and to study the effects of the lunar environment on them.

Be that as it may, it's amusing to see on the moon that thousands of sea bears are watching it.

Then it is possible that this story is the subject of many horror movies or science fiction.