

Scientists find traces of sea plankton on ISS surface - Shivetya
http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/745635

======
Involute
Apollo 12 retrieved a Surveyor 3 camera that had been on the Moon for over two
years and contained _Streptococcus mitis_ bacteria that survived in a dormant
state and were recultured back on Earth. Pete Conrad, Apollo 12 commander,
said, "I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the
whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever
said [anything] about it."

~~~
daveslash
As much as I _WANT_ to believe, and I did for a long while, that Strep was on
the moon for years, it's possible that this was a false positive. That being
said, I think this is still an important event and is a good starting point
for experimentation.

 _" One of the implements being used to scrape samples off the Surveyor parts
could have been laid down on a non-sterile laboratory bench, and then was used
to collect surface samples for culturing. It is, therefore, quite possible
that the microorganisms were transferred to the camera after its return to
Earth. Furthermore, the Surveyor 3 camera was returned from the Moon in a
nylon duffel bag, and was not in the type of sealed airtight metal container
used to return lunar samples in the early Apollo missions. It is therefore
possible that it was contaminated by the astronauts and the environment in the
Apollo 12 capsule itself. The bacterial test is now non-repeatable because the
parts were subsequently taken out of quarantine and fully re-exposed to
terrestrial conditions."_

source:
[http://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/experiment/exper.aspx?exp_i...](http://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/experiment/exper.aspx?exp_index=1651)

------
wcoenen
> “We are conducting special works to polish somehow and put illuminators in
> order. This is particularly needed during long space flights,” Solovyev
> added.

The whole article seems to be mangled by bad translation. It's difficult to
tell what it is about.

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ejr
It was probably blown up there by "uplifting air currents" according to :
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2728979/Never...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2728979/Never-
mind-alien-life-SEA-PLANKTON-space-Creatures-living-surface-ISS-officials-
say.html)

We have to keep in mind that, even at that altitude, there are still air
molecules. They're extremely sparse, but just enough that the drag they induce
on the ISS and its large surface area of solar panels make periodic boosting
necessary.

~~~
mkonecny
Would the moon ever need a "boost"? Even though it's probably not hitting any
air molecules from Earth, it's still colliding with tons of space debris a
day.

~~~
mnw21cam
The moon is being continually boosted by the rotation of the earth. The moon's
gravity causes tides on the earth's surface. However, the shape of the earth
is slightly ahead of being directly lined up with the moon because of inertia
and sloshing. That uneven earth shape exerts a slightly uneven pull on the
moon which increases its angular velocity around the earth, and slows down the
angular velocity of the earth's rotation.

    
    
         .--~~~--.             ^
        /   <-    \            |
       |   Earth  |            O Moon
       \    ->   /
        '--___--'
    

Note, the bulge of the earth is slightly exaggerated in this diagram, and the
moon is further away on this scale.

In effect, the rotation of the earth is dragging the moon around faster (which
causes it to move further from the earth and go slower).

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NatTurner
{Nat Turner says} This finding on the International Space Station makes it
clear that the earth is surrounded by an aura of life, at least in the form of
plankton. Though the particular type of plankton has not been identified, it
has been established that it is not the type of plankton, which would have
possibly been picked up from the delivery launch area of Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan . Were the plankton picked up before launch, doubtless the
extreme heat would have destroyed them. The ISS has been orbiting the earth
since 1998 at an altitude of between 330 km / 205 mi and 435 km /270 mi It is
clear that if they are first lifted from the sea into the atmosphere by rising
air currents and winds, when those winds dissipate that the plankton carries
on at their own steam as though drifting in the seas. The oceans have been
here some 4,400 billion years, it must be posited that what ever means the
plankton has used to make it into space onto the ISS, has been going on since
that time. The unthinkable alternative is that the deeps, of space, is full of
this life form, which of course will give the evolutionists new material,
other than asteroids, with which to rework their theories of the seeding of
life on earth.

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patcheudor
"He noted that it was not quite clear how these microscopic particles could
have appeared on the surface of the space station."

Duh! Dolphins. It's like these people never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy.

------
celias
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Slime](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Slime)

------
gren
how is that possible?

~~~
seszett
Microorganisms are probably far less affected by vacuum than larger ones, as
long as they can get some nutrients from time to time. And since most engines
used in space produce plain water (and engines are fired frequently around the
ISS), I think the only really difficult thing about the environment is
radiation... and microorganisms might also be more resistant to this.

~~~
muraiki
Tardigrades can endure some of the most extreme conditions, including the
vacuum of space and solar radiation, and can go without food or water for more
than 10 years:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade)

Not the same as plankton, but still quite interesting, I think!

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fhnjh
Panspermia?

~~~
noselasd
No. The ISS isn't really that far from earth and there's a lot of exchange
going on between earth and the ISS, mostly from all the various spacecraft we
send up.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I think they meant it the other way, from Earth outwards.

So if you find x living microbes at 200km from Earth, given thermal
dispersion, shouldn't there be some y number of molecules from Earth on the
Moon? (And so on)

Even if y is a really small number, it effectively means any one planet with
life would most likely "pollute" the star system it finds itself in. (Would
need to do the math on this, but I believe that was the commenter's point)

~~~
dandelany
> So if you find x living microbes at 200km from Earth, given thermal
> dispersion, shouldn't there be some y number of molecules from Earth on the
> Moon?

I doubt it - even if the "uplifting air currents" hypothesis were proven true,
there's a massive difference between low earth orbit and the moon. Around 8
km/s of delta-V to be exact.[1] This means that, to make it to the moon, the
molecule not only has to reach LEO, it has to be moving at 8 km/s (a pretty
insane speed) by the time it gets there. I can't imagine any earthly air
current moving that fast, in fact it's likely impossible because the speed of
sound is only 0.35 km/s.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Earth-
Moon_spac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Earth-
Moon_space_.E2.80.94_low_thrust)

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giarc
This reminds me of a little theory in microbiology, that is that every species
exists in every place. For example, if you were to build an alkaline lake in
the middle of nowhere (where no alkaline lakes exists), it wouldn't take long
before specific species of bacteria would colonize that lake.

~~~
jbattle
That sounds suspiciously like spontaneous generation - what is the actual
theory?

~~~
giarc
Did some research as it seems people don't like it when you don't have
citations.

A Dutch researcher named Baas Becker wrote in 1934 "Everything is everywhere,
but the environment selects".

