Old Book on Electric Vehicles and Horseless Carriages

Excerpt from KNOWN (Kindle, 2013)

The resilient microbe

Some microbes are tough. In one experiment, they survived the vacuum of space for over five years. American space agency scientists put subtilis spores in the presence of glucose on the Long Duration Exposure Facility, a large, open structure. Engineers launched the structure into space. Astonishingly, eighty percent of the spores survived!

As mentioned, bacteria survived for over two and a half years in a camera left on the moon.

In another experiment, another microbe called a tardigrade survived space’s vacuum for ten days. The 2007 experiment confirmed that some microbes, called extremophiles, can survive the vacuum.

Life is resilient, and extremophiles confirm that point. Some survive space. Other extremophiles live thousands of meters below Antarctica’s surface. Many scientists believe that, if life can survive those extreme conditions, it must also survive other conditions in the Solar System. If an extremophile can survive thousands of meters below the surface of Antarctica, scientists reason, extremophiles might survive in Europa’s waters.

So the possibility that life lives outside Earth increases.

Copyright, 2013. Wade Hobbs