
Tardigrades may now be living on Moon - gglon
https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/hordes-earths-toughest-creatures-may-now-be-living-moon-doc-1jd4j52
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Unknoob
Can this be flagged as clickbait? They are not living, they are in
cryptobiosis. Even though experiments have shown that they can come back to
life after a long time in this state, nothing can guarantee that they are
actually still alive.

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dekhn
i agree the article isn't super informative, but is it correct to say that
something in cryptobiosis isn't alive? There is almost certainly some tiny
amount of remnant metabolism and sensor proteins.

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newzombie
If we find one on the moon, can we know if it originates from earth?

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en-us
We can sequence its DNA and see how similar it is to the ones on Earth. If
there are living organisms on the moon that share a common ancestor with Earth
tardigrades then they diverged a very long time ago and their DNA will reflect
that. But if their DNA is identical to those on Earth then we know they came
from Earth.

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dwiel
Do you know how much tardigrades DNA have changed since they first appeared on
earth?

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en-us
I do not know exactly how much but this is something that can be approximately
quantified.

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macmac
They will be waiting for us when we come back.

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dexen
Cue the "accidental panspermia hypothesis" \- the real (messy) world variant
of panspermia[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia)

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Reason077
> _”That distinction belongs to the DNA and microbes contained in the almost
> 100 bags of feces and urine left behind by American astronauts during the
> Apollo lunar landings from 1969-1972.”_

Gross! Talk about littering and polluting a pristine environment. This is at
least as bad as the climbers who leave poop on Everest, where it doesn’t
biodegrade.

Is it really so hard to bring poop back with you? Were payload restrictions
that tight on the return Apollo journeys?

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itronitron
i wonder if they accounted for the reduction in mass when calculating the
return trajectory

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bencollier49
Difficult to figure out how regular the astronauts would be.

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lawlessone
they probably had them on a strict diet and knew pretty well.

