ESA Experiment on ISS Shows Lichen can Survive in Outer Space

Maybe Could Hitch a Ride on Asteroids and Colonize Other Planets

There's a scientific hypothesis called panspermia. It theorizes that life could be seeded on certain hospitable planets (potentially including Earth) from outer space, via asteroids and organisms that can survive the very harsh conditions of the void (radiations, cold, vacuum, etc).

On this topic, Wikipedia says: "Panspermia proposes that life that can survive the effects of space, such as extremophile archaea, become trapped in debris that is ejected into space after collisions between planets that harbor life and Small Solar System Bodies (SSSB). Bacteria may travel dormant for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets or intermingling with protoplanetary disks. If met with ideal conditions on a new planet's surfaces, the bacteria become active and the process of evolution begins. Panspermia is not meant to address how life began, just the method that may cause its sustenance."

Now obviously that is a very hard hypothesis to confirm, but we can certainly say that it is more or less probable by running experiments on organisms to see how well they would survive in space.

international space station photo

That's what the European Space Agency (ESA) has done on board the ISS:




Now that these samples have been brought back to Earth and studying, we've discovered that lichen was the toughest of that batch. Back on Earth after being irradiated and in a dormant state for months, it started growing again.



Above is a photo of the Expose-E module placed on the International Space Station's European laboratory module Columbus. Expose allows long exposures to space conditions and solar-UV radiation on the International Space Station. Several trays filled with organisms were installed on the outside of the European Columbus laboratory.


See also: SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch Successful, Dragon Capsule one Step Closed to ISS

ESA Experiment on ISS Shows Lichen can Survive in Outer Space
Could life jump from one planet to the other via asteroids and organisms that can stay dormant and handle the void of space?

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