Scientists finally weigh in on what it means to create life outside of Earth and what it would take to grow plants on other planetary soil.
The scientist that has spoken out about this shocking piece of news is Tomomichi Fujita, the lead author working at Hokkaido University.
It is to be noted that the plant that made it through nine months in the vacuum of space is moss spores. They did so despit being outside of the International Space Station (ISS), in extreme temperatures, and even survived UV radiation, according to a report published in journal iScience on November 20.
What is pertinent to mention is that moss is well known for its ability to survive in areas that are deemed ‘challenging’ for other types of plants and wildlife. Whether that be in the Himalayan peaks, the deserts of Death Valley, or the Antarctic tundra. Perhaps even the cooling surfaces of active volcanoes.
With such findings, the lead author admitted, “most living organisms, including humans, cannot survive even briefly in the vacuum of space.”
“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.”
He even highlighted the possibility of exploring “space moss” as a result because he was even ‘impressed’ by the plant’s ability to adapt on Earth.
“I began to wonder: could this small yet remarkably robust plant also survive in space?” he recalled thinking. That is why for his experiment he compared three moss forms. Protenemata (juvenile moss), brood cells (stress-induced stem cells), and sporophytes (encapsulated spores), with the aim of seeing what has the highest chance of surviving in space.
“We anticipated that the combined stresses of space, including vacuum, cosmic radiation, extreme temperature fluctuations, and microgravity, would cause far greater damage than any single stress alone”.
Their findings led them to realize that UV radiation posed the biggest threat, but also that sporophytes clearly outperformed the other types.
Juvenile moss on the other hand failed to survive any long term UV exposure, or extreme temperatures, leaving brood cells somewhere in the middle.
Encased spores were able to −196°C for more than a week or 55°C for a complete month.
It began in March 2022 when hundreds of sporophytes traveled towards the ISS via the Cygnus NG-17 spacecraft. After they reached, astronauts mounted the samples near the exterior of the station’s walls and left them alone for 283 days. They were brought back in January of 2023 on SpaceX CRS-16, then taken back for analysis to a lab.
Regarding the outcome Mr Tomomichi himself said “we expected almost zero survival, but the result was the opposite: most of the spores survived. We were genuinely astonished by the extraordinary durability of these tiny plant cells.”
In terms of percentage, about 80% of the spores endured the full trip, but only 1 1% of those survivors made it passed the germination stage in the lab.
When tested, chlorophyll showed completely normal levels in those that successfully survived, with only a 20% drop in chlorophyll which is a light-sensitive compound.
Thus in the author’s eyes, “This study demonstrates the astonishing resilience of life that originated on Earth.”
In a mathematical model they createad to map out how long spores would survive if they increased the time they stayed in space, the numbers showed a staggering survival span of 5,600 days, or about 15 years, however they stress more data is needed for any firm conclusion to be made.
Regardless before signing off he said, “Ultimately, we hope this work opens a new frontier toward constructing ecosystems in extraterrestrial environments such as the Moon and Mars. I hope that our moss research will serve as a starting point.”
According to Science Daily the work was done in collaboration between the DX scholarship Hokkaido University, JSPS KAKENHI, and the Astrobiology Center of National Institutes of Natural Sciences