Tardigrades crash-landed on the moon! 

According to these reports in Wired and Popular Mechanics, the freakishly resilient microscopic creatures tardigrades (also known as “water bears”) have landed on the moon. In April of this year (2019), a private Israeli space company sent a lander to the moon carrying a payload from a bizarre Silicon Valley nonproft, the Arch Mission Foundation, whose goal is to create “a backup of planet Earth” by seeding the universe with human civilization in the form of microscopic images of books, our languages, and even our DNA. On this particular trip, for some reason the foundation also included a bunch of dehydrated tardigrades.

Tardigrades, bizarre looking little monsters, are known for their ability to dry down to a mere 3% of their normal water content, and go so dormant that they can survive for periods of time that vastly exceed their normal lifespan. They are also resistant to the vacuum of space, and an awful lot of radiation.

The lunar lander carrying them crashed on the surface, and there is a high likelihood that the tardigrades survived. The creatures are in their dormant state, so the founder of the Arch Mission Foundation “… says there’s no reason to worry about water bears taking over the moon. Any lunar tardigrades found by future humans will have to be brought back to Earth or somewhere with an atmosphere in order to rehydrate them.”

But this juicy bit of real science news is great material for a science thriller. I’m adding it to my list of topics for a possible short story in future.

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