Moss on Exterior of The ISS Astonishes Scientists
- Editor OGN Daily
- 39 minutes ago
- 2 min read
When spores from a humble moss were sent into space, it was one small step for moss, one giant leap for moss-kind. Demonstrating "the astonishing resilience of life that originated on Earth."
Over 80 percent of the spores survived nine months attached to the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and made it back to Earth still able to reproduce. The feat, described in iScience, demonstrates the ability of early land plants to survive long-term exposure to the extremes of space.
From the peaks of the Himalayas to the sands of Death Valley, mosses are well known for their ability to withstand harsh environments. Space, however, is a completely different beast, with high levels of UV radiation, extreme high and low temperatures and vacuum conditions. Attached to an exterior platform on the ISS, the moss orbited the Earth approximately once every 90 minutes, for 283 days. And most of it survived in conditions that would kill a human in minutes.
"Most living organisms, including humans, cannot survive even briefly in the vacuum of space," study lead author Tomomichi Fujita, of Hokkaido University in Japan, said in a statement. "However, the moss spores retained their vitality after nine months of direct exposure. This provides striking evidence that the life that has evolved on Earth possesses, at the cellular level, intrinsic mechanisms to endure the conditions of space."
“We expected almost zero survival,” says Fujita, “but the result was the opposite: most of the spores survived. We were genuinely astonished.” Of the 80 percent of spores that survived, 89 percent were subsequently able to germinate.
"Ultimately, we hope this work opens a new frontier toward constructing ecosystems in extraterrestrial environments such as the moon and Mars," he said. "I hope that our moss research will serve as a starting point."
