
Bacteria on the outside of the International Space Station - henrypray
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/alien-life-bacteria-space-international-station-bacteria-cosmonaut-astronaut-russia-a8080036.html
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yosito
Sounds slightly surprising, but the exterior of the ISS is not a sterile
environment. There are thousands of ways terrestrial bacteria could have ended
up there. I guess the interesting thing is that the bacteria seem to be able
to survive the extreme environment. But that's hardly a new discovery about
bacteria.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Maybe it's a matter of time? I mean, there's quite a bit of UV from the Sun
baking that surface every day. Perhaps those bacteria would eventually die if
they are not being replenished from somewhere.

~~~
askvictor
Here are some rough calculations on the matter: [https://what-
if.xkcd.com/117/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/117/)

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CodeTheInternet
Couldn't this simply be from an astronaut sneezing on a glove prior to a
spacewalk, then grabbing a handrail? We already know about water bears that
can survive in space, so why not bacteria.

~~~
joshvm
Pretty much - even opening the air lock will do it.

> The former cosmonaut, who spent nearly a year in orbit back in the 1980s,
> said that outer surface of ISS is “heavily contaminated” by the waste
> products from engines of the arriving spacecraft, atmospheric discharges
> from the station during spacewalks by the crew and other factors.

[https://www.rt.com/news/181472-iss-marine-plankton-
space/](https://www.rt.com/news/181472-iss-marine-plankton-space/)

There is also evidence that bacteria get carried up on air currents and the
ISS orbits low enough that it can intercept this stuff. (note that while this
is widely reported, there doesn't seem to be anything actually published, and
the air current theory is, well, a theory).

There are several papers on _interior_ contamination though, e.g
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0923250805...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0923250805002627)

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ReedJessen
So... You found bacteria on your swab while orbiting the largest and only
known source of bacteria in the universe and you think it might _not_ be from
that largest and only known source of bacteria? Bah!

click bait...

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marze
Unlikely to be ET, but deserving of careful study. All extreme life is
interesting.

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hgdsraj
What if it is extraterrestrial in origin but also exists on earth (originally
coming from elsewhere)? How would they know the difference then?

~~~
antonvs
If the alien organism originally evolved independently of life on Earth, then
analyzing its genetic material - its equivalent of DNA - would tell us a lot.

We haven't yet found any organisms on Earth that have evolved independently,
so an organism found in space that has a different genetic structure from
Earth life would be a good bet for being alien in origin.

An alternative, albeit unlikely, possibility is that Earth life was originally
seeded from somewhere else - panspermia,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia).

In that case, Earth life and (some) alien life would have a common origin, and
we'd have to examine the differences in its DNA to find out more about its
history.

Even in that case, it ought to be possible to determine that the organism had
branched off from Earth life long enough ago to make it a candidate for alien
life.

~~~
greggarious
>An alternative, albeit unlikely, possibility is that Earth life was
originally seeded from somewhere else - panspermia,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia).

I've seen this hypothesis before. I've also seen the oft repeated assumption
that other intelligent life might be out there, more advanced than ours.

Crazy though: what if we _are_ the most advanced life in th universe?

~~~
PeterisP
If the probabilities are such that it's feasible that we're the first/most
advanced life in the universe, then (given our planets comparably young age)
it's exceedingly likely that we're the _only_ life in the observable universe.

It would be plausible for us to be alone, and it would be plausible for us to
be one of the less advanced lifeforms among many, but it would be quite
surprising if we'd to be the most advanced civilization among many; since
many/most of them would have gotten a significant head start.

~~~
greggarious
Did they get a head start though? All these atoms bouncing around started with
the big bang after all :)

One theory I'm fond of is that we are not alone, but life is so rare that the
distances between intelligent civilizations are too vast for us to ever
observe them (or vice versa).

~~~
PeterisP
Many, many other planets had conditions suitable (as far as we understand
what's suitable) for creating life when our planet didn't exist yet; out of
all feasible planets we're younger than average, so others would have had a
head start.

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sgt101
The Independent was a great newspaper, but it collapsed some years ago and the
website is just baloney.

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greggarious
Doesn't the ISS blast human excrement out into space? Maybe that explains the
bacteria

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Actually, they ship it down to Earth during the resupply missions.

~~~
Spare_account
I'm getting conflicting information from NASA on this.

According to the first link (PDF, sorry), waste is disposed of in re-entry
craft.

But according to the second link, it's ejected to burn up in the atmosphere.

[https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/issrdc_2013-0...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/issrdc_2013-07-17-1600_carrasquillo2013.pdf)

[https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/inf...](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/infographic_yearinspace)

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
In any case, we know that they use special waste storage containers, and don't
expose feces to space directly (presumably until these systems fail during re-
entry - far away from the ISS). Take your pick of the several videos on
YouTube that describe the ISS's toilet to see the waste containers in
question.

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JoeDaDude
There are a handful of scientists attempting to collect life forms from very
high altitudes using balloons. In one instance [1] they discovered UV
resistant bacteria. Could it be remotely possible that high altitude species
have managed to live on the ISS?

[1]
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090318094642.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090318094642.htm)

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m3kw9
Any type of leak can contribute to this bacteria. Maybe there is some benign
bacteria that was stuck on the outside from earth that will thrive in such
environment

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dustfinger
Earlier this year, Russian scientists announced that the "Test" experiments
had found a range of different organisms that had been brought up from Earth
and seemed to be surviving by clinging onto the ISS's hull.

The above quote from the article suggests to me that there is a good chance
that some of the bacteria remained on the hull long after the experiments
performed by the Russians earlier that year.

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sempron64
If bacteria have survived on the surface of the ISS, I wonder what we have
introduced to the Moon and Mars (and maybe Venus!) on landers. Perhaps they'll
be covered in a biome soon.

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guilamu
Guys, come on, this is The Independent...

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GrumpyNl
And this is how we bring live to other planets. These bacteria will survive
somewhere on a planet.

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Sir_Cmpwn
The suggestion that the bacteria is extraterrestrial in origin is absolutely
ridiculous. Much, much, _much_ more research is necessary before such a claim
can be made. The speculation on Shkaplerov's part is hugely unprofessional.

~~~
antonvs
Shkaplerov appears to be a very accomplished pilot - see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Shkaplerov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Shkaplerov).
It's not clear why anyone would pay attention to his claims about exobiology.
The journalism is unprofessional, too, although that's not news.

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api
I can't help but keep wondering if "life originated on Earth" might not be the
last geocentrism.

It's only speculation at this point but it's one I've harbored for many years.
Part of this is because of how common we've found organic materials to be in
the universe, and part of it comes from how poorly other geocentric ideas have
fared.

~~~
reubenswartz
There are plausible theories about how life arose on Earth.

If you want to assume it came from somewhere else, you either have to invoke
some kind of magic, or assume it happened somewhat along the lines that it
would have done on Earth, then arrived somehow. It just kicks the can down the
road without solving anything, IMO.

~~~
avian
> It just kicks the can down the road without solving anything

Panspermia is an attempt to explain one inconsistency in our observations so
far: it appears that life spontaneously emerging from inorganics is hugely
unlikely. On other hand, geological records show that life appeared on Earth
very soon after it became viable.

If life on Earth originated somewhere else, then this discrepancy can be made
to disappear. For example, abiogenesis only needs to arise once within a large
radius around Earth and within a much broader time margin. Hence it can be a
very rare event while still not making early life on Earth a unique event in
the universe.

I don't personally believe panspermia is likely. But it is a valid theory
(although without much supporting evidence as far as I know).

~~~
reubenswartz
It's certainly a valid hypothesis. And stronger (any?) evidence for possible
life on Mars or Venus would possibly support this.

With a sample size of 1, and loose record-keeping from ~4B years ago, it's
hard to tell, but we don't really know if it took life 1 day or 500M years to
evolve once it was chemically/geologically viable. We do know that life was
very primitive for > 1B years (not even eukaryotic, let alone multicellular).

We also know that space isn't teaming with little biologically active spores
from other worlds (unless it is and the government is covering it up, of
course), which suggests that in the vastness of space, life doesn't really
hitch rides on asteroids or comets and colonize the galaxy accidentally. And
if some beings were doing this on purpose, why not send more advanced life
forms or robots?

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godelski
This is CLEARLY clickbait. Why is this on the front page of HN? It is
currently ranked #7!!

Article tldr: There's bacteria on the outside of the ISS. We've found some
before and this isn't new. BUT THIS TIME IT MIGHT BE ALIEN!!! Why? Well...
because it COULD be.

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otakucode
Culture it, fill a probe full of canisters of the bacteria, and fire them
directly at Europa. Spreading life should be of more importance than
preserving the absurd idea of "pristine" environments for the selfish reasons
of future scientists not wanting to do 4 minutes extra work determining
whether the thing they observe occurred before or after human action changed
things (as if such a distinction actually matters in the slightest).

~~~
cup-of-tea
Why Europa? Why would you want to introduce a foreign bacteria that could
potentially wipe out any possible life there? Why is spreading life important?

