Some of Our Sources
- Mashable
- Techcrunch
- Simplebits
- Web Designer Wall
- Joshua Blankenship
- Wal You
- Design Modo
- Web Resource Source
- Android Headlines
- Willems Lab
Help Webnuz
Referal links:
August 7, 2019 10:00 am
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Gupim5cRolU/tardigrades-are-now-on-the-moon-thanks-to-a-crashed-israeli-spacecraft
Tardigrades Are Now On the Moon Thanks To a Crashed Israeli Spacecraft
Tardigrades, the microsopic water-dwelling animals that can survive almost any environment, may be on the moon thanks to an Israeli spacecraft called Beresheet. The spacecraft was carrying thousands of dehydrated tardigrades (among other cargo) when it crashed due to glitches with the landing process. CNET reports: The Israeli spacecraft was transporting Arch Mission's first lunar library, a digital archive holding the equivalent of 30 million pages of information. It also carried human DNA samples and thousands of dehydrated tardigrades. It's unknown how much of the cargo actually ended up on the moon's surface following the crash. Based on Arch Mission's analysis of the spacecraft's path as well as the makeup of the lunar library itself, Arch Mission Foundation founder Nova Spivack told Wired on Monday that he's confident the library, a "DVD-sized object made of thin sheets of nickel," survived the crash mostly intact. That doesn't mean the DNA or water bears are in good shape. "About the tardigrades in the Lunar Library: Some are sealed in epoxy with 100 million human, plant and microorganism cells," Spivack tweeted Tuesday. "Some are encapsulated onto the sticky side of a 1cm square piece of Kapton tape that is sealed inside the disc stack. They cannot reproduce on the moon." Even though the dehydrated tardigrades can't spring to life on the moon, they could theoretically be gathered, revived and studied to teach us about their time there. "It is not likely that cells can survive on the moon without a lot more protection from radiation," Spivack added. "However the human cells, plant cells and micro organisms we sent could be recovered, studied and their DNA extracted -- perhaps to be cloned and regenerated, far in the future."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Gupim5cRolU/tardigrades-are-now-on-the-moon-thanks-to-a-crashed-israeli-spacecraft
Share this article:
Tweet
View Full Article
Slashdot
Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..More About this Source Visit Slashdot