7 ms·

A Crashed Israeli Lunar Lander Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon (2019)

128 points by venmul 3y ago

anonym29 3y ago
[flagged]
electronicelyas 3y ago
this will be an interesting case study of current theories of evolution in a couple thousand years
ur-whale 3y ago
https://archive.is/vKPvu https://archive.is/vKPvu
seraphsf 3y ago
https://archive.ph/T2xxh https://archive.ph/T2xxh
justinclift 3y ago
2019
denton-scratch 3y ago
Article is a bit breathless. > and can be viewed using a microscope capable of 1000x magnification—a technology that has been available for hundreds of years. I don't think so; maybe 100 years. To achieve 1,000x magnification with an optical microscope, you need oil (or some other fluid with a refractive index similar to that of the lens) between the objective lens and the subject. I believe the maximum theoretical magnification you can achieve with an optical microscope is about 1,400x. The limit is imposed by the minimum wavelength of visible light.
- devjab 3y ago
  Are you sure? I ask because the Dutch were wild by the end of the seventeenth century, people like Antoni van Leeuwenhoek achieved 500x magnification with a single lens microscope as an example. If you wonder why I know this, it’s because this was when the first bacteria are believed to have been observed. Leading off to the next part that I’m not so sure of, but the single lens microscope was/is terrible to use, and this lead to the first compound microscopes being build shortly there after. I believe the practical limit of those is 2,500x magnification though I’m not sure when that was made possible, but many of the ones we have in education today range from 400-1000x magnification (mostly down to cost and care of the institution).
  - WillPostForFood 3y ago
    I've looked at a couple sources and they all say 250x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/tsld005.htm https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/ts...
    - devjab 3y ago
      You seem to be right: https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek Says 275x. I guess my education lied to me.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > 2,500x magnification You can, of course, magnify as much as you want; but you won't see more detail. "Junior" microscopes often brag of a 1000x magnification; but that only works if the lenses are really good, and in that kind of microscope, they aren't. You need 1000x to see bacteria. Bacteria are really boring to look at; they appear as undifferentiated spheres or rods. And even then you can't see them at all without fixing and staining. Single-lens microscopes suffer from spherical abberation (only the centre of the image is in focus) and chromatic abberation (everything has rainbow fringes around it). These problems are worse with greater magnification. As far as I can tell, the best "mass-market" compound lenses these days are made in China. Source: I bought my son a microscope a few months ago; he said he wanted to see bacteria. I hoped a "junior" 'scope would get me off the hook, but I consulted suppliers, and they warned me off, and told me quite a lot about how to choose a 'scope. I also bought him a set of stains and solvents, including a gram-staining kit. I did a fair bit of research before I spent money.
    - monetus 3y ago
      Happen to blog about it, or have some links?
      - denton-scratch 3y ago
- bloak 3y ago
  Interesting. Modern optical microscopes, even cheap ones, do 1000x, though I seem to remember, from playing with a cheapish one, that it was very hard to get a worthwhile image at 1000x. Amazon.co.uk has a microscope for £54.59 that does "1600X" ... "for Kids"! The one I played with wasn't that cheap! According to random online articles, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) achieved 275x and a few of his instruments have survived until today, in museums, I presume.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    1600X seems like the lumens rating of Chinese bike lights on Amazon.
    - jimduk 3y ago
      The math for cheap amazon microscopes is often based on the ratio of a digital image. So use a 60" monitor rather than 30" you have an extra 2x magnification. But not better resolution!
- nosianu 3y ago
  Here's a Physics-Stackexchange answer with a little more detail i support: You can go higher but it won't help you because you won't see more. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-microscope-magnification-limits https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-mi... > ... > So for violet light λ=405nm, and good lens with oil immersion (NA=1.25), you can have resolution 197nm. > So, in conclusion, optical microscopes are limited to ~x1500 because going any further does not resolve smaller details. The comments below the answer add additional details. Related Wikipedia article (Diffraction-limited system): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system There are various "tricks" to achieve more -- "Super-resolution microscopy" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy > Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit.
- ilyt 3y ago
  I mean if it was "so far we haven't found evidence of any optical instrument of that magnitude available at that time", fair enough, but you're suggesting people didn't had oil few hundred years ago...
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    Not at all. But there's no point in going to oil-immersion microscopy, if you haven't yet invented compound lenses. Those are a 19th-century development.
fsckboy 3y ago
"tardigraves find a way." wikipedia: They have been found in diverse regions of Earth's biosphere – mountaintops, the deep sea, tropical rainforests, and the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other known forms of life. Tardigrades have survived exposure to outer space.
- benj111 3y ago
  So on some future space mining trip to the moon, these will some how get picked up, then after their long sleep, and some mutations from cosmic rays, will start taking out the crew one by one?
  - Ygg2 3y ago
    No. Mutation doesn't imply it just morphed for dramatic purposes.
    - benj111 3y ago
      What if it got radioactive and then bit one of the crew who took on tardigrade qualities, and started taking out the crew? Or maybe a transporter incident where the tardigrades DNA merged with a humans, and it started taking out the crew? Or 25th century Meta started secret experiments on Luna tardigrades and decided they wanted to test their new weapon on the unsuspecting crew of some old transport ship?
      - ionwake 3y ago
        I too am waiting for ygg2s’ answers as he seems knowledgable on the subject
        Ygg2 3y ago
        Wait, no more.
zabzonk 3y ago
possibly a failed attempt to infiltrate the nazi moon-base?
- ggm 3y ago
  But any humans of 1940s German origin up there would have brought tardigrades of their own.
tempodox 3y ago
(2019). I'd be interested to know whether that tardigrade image is actually a photo.
- dotancohen 3y ago
  > (2019) Interesting why this comes up now, then. > I'd be interested to know whether that tardigrade image is actually a photo. I'd imagine so. This is exactly what they do look like. Though this is the most detailed image I think that I've ever seen, it is not far beyond other images that I know for certain are not renders.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    It doesn't appear to be standing on anything though - could it have been suspended in a liquid of the same density as itself? Despite the image being credited to Getty Images, I couldn't find it in their catalogue.
    - dotancohen 3y ago
      > could it have been suspended in a liquid of the same density as itself Water?
paraiuspau 3y ago
Possibility to evolve ability to utilise cosmic mycelial network for fast travel?
- transfire 3y ago
  LOL
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
The chances that none of the made-made objects that touched the moon carried a few tardigrades is very small anyway. The idea we can move so far away with such complicated processes without any contamination is just a dream, no matter the precautions we take. We can just limit it to the minimum, which is already quite amazing. So the israeli ones are just the one we know about.
- noduerme 3y ago
  > So the israeli ones are just the one we know about. Yes, but much easier to condemn in the General Assembly.
  - n1b0m 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - localplume 3y ago
      [dead]
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    Establishing an apartheid state tends to do that, yes.
    - noduerme 3y ago
      Yes, those tardigrades should go back where they came from! Free the crater!
- djigrucst 3y ago
  you are handwaving decades of strict anti contamination protocol. with all respect, you sound like someone spreading anti vax theories.
yyyk 3y ago
This shows the difference between physics and drama. Physics tells us nothing much happened. Drama tells us they survived, they evolved, and are just waiting for their water-thirsty revenge...
dfee 3y ago
Aliens exist! Tardigrades, sure. But they're out there!
- benj111 3y ago
  Tardigrades aren't aliens, they're emigrants. Of course from the moon people's pov, they are aliens.
  - dfee 3y ago
    Does the term apply like that? At what point would they become alien - small or significant evolution? Is there a right answer?
    - benj111 3y ago
      google gives the definition "supposedly from another world". tardigrades are from this world. i wouldnt define a mars born human as alien, so i wouldnt say its based on where that generation was born either. evolutionarily, i suppose for me the dividing line is when the creature has evolved to the point where its more at home in its new habitat than its old. i dont think youre ever going to get a bullet proof, exceptionless definition though.
      - dingaling 3y ago
        > tardigrades are from this world. There are plenty of them here, but did they evolve on Earth or arrive from elsewhere...?
        benj111 3y ago
        Have you got any particular evidence? We could hypothecate that God made them, that isn't really science though.
        chatmasta 3y ago
        They are DNA-based organisms, like every other known life form, all of which evolved on Earth, so it seems reasonable to assume they evolved here too. Of course you might hypothesize that DNA is a building block of life that is not unique to Earth, but that's a whole other can of worms...
kplex 3y ago
Make My Day on Netflix now makes a lot more sense.
amichal 3y ago
Someone did some research on if they could have survived... doesn't seem likely https://www.science.org/content/article/hardy-water-bears-survive-bullet-impacts-point https://www.science.org/content/article/hardy-water-bears-su...
0xbadc0de5 3y ago
Don't worry, they'll be fine. ;)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cuSetanta 3y ago
As someone who has worked onmultiple spacecraft, including a lunar lander, this is no surprise. Cleanrooms are great but ISO 8 (the most common cleanliness standard for spacecraft manufacture) isnt perfect. Missions to Mars and other planets have much much stricter cleanliness requirements, so much so that it becomes a real barrier to work and cost. I quite enjoy the idea that some of my DNA is now on the moon.
- d35007 3y ago
  Are cleanliness standards relevant in this context? As far as I can tell, the tardigrades — and everything else mentioned in the article — were put there on purpose.
  - TheCleric 3y ago
    I think the overall point is that while this was purposeful, the cleanliness standards mean that this has likely already occurred accidentally.
api 3y ago
Soon: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CWhJhtI4FMk/XCJToVW3rfI/AAAAAAAAKjA/NOyDCc01JuMI0g-dtK_49lQtmq2MdEYEQCLcBGAs/s1600/attack_of_the_tardigrades_by_ramul%2Bcopy.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CWhJhtI4FMk/XCJToVW3rfI/AAAAAAAAK...
airesearcher 3y ago
It was said there was hummus on the Moon which may explain why Israel sent the tardigrades. In any case, the alleged tardigrades were actually in the “tun state” (dehydrated) and on a 1 cm square piece of tape that was embedded in epoxy resin. Therefore if they were not vaporized by the impact of the crash they would be preserved but unable to reanimate… This is why NATO has sent several secret resupply missions with solvent, tiny water bottles, and pita bread, in recent years. But so far all attempts to rehydrate the tardigrades have also crashed.
- 2h 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - A_non_e-moose 3y ago
    [flagged]
ElfinTrousers 3y ago
I got a postcard from the tardigrades the other day. They're fine and they say hi.

128 points by venmul 3y ago

anonym29 3y ago

[flagged]

electronicelyas 3y ago

this will be an interesting case study of current theories of evolution in a couple thousand years

ur-whale 3y ago

https://archive.is/vKPvu https://archive.is/vKPvu

seraphsf 3y ago

https://archive.ph/T2xxh https://archive.ph/T2xxh

justinclift 3y ago

2019

denton-scratch 3y ago

Article is a bit breathless. > and can be viewed using a microscope capable of 1000x magnification—a technology that has been available for hundreds of years. I don't think so; maybe 100 years. To achieve 1,000x magnification with an optical microscope, you need oil (or some other fluid with a refractive index similar to that of the lens) between the objective lens and the subject. I believe the maximum theoretical magnification you can achieve with an optical microscope is about 1,400x. The limit is imposed by the minimum wavelength of visible light.

devjab 3y ago
Are you sure? I ask because the Dutch were wild by the end of the seventeenth century, people like Antoni van Leeuwenhoek achieved 500x magnification with a single lens microscope as an example. If you wonder why I know this, it’s because this was when the first bacteria are believed to have been observed. Leading off to the next part that I’m not so sure of, but the single lens microscope was/is terrible to use, and this lead to the first compound microscopes being build shortly there after. I believe the practical limit of those is 2,500x magnification though I’m not sure when that was made possible, but many of the ones we have in education today range from 400-1000x magnification (mostly down to cost and care of the institution).
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  I've looked at a couple sources and they all say 250x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/tsld005.htm https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/ts...
  - devjab 3y ago
    You seem to be right: https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek Says 275x. I guess my education lied to me.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > 2,500x magnification You can, of course, magnify as much as you want; but you won't see more detail. "Junior" microscopes often brag of a 1000x magnification; but that only works if the lenses are really good, and in that kind of microscope, they aren't. You need 1000x to see bacteria. Bacteria are really boring to look at; they appear as undifferentiated spheres or rods. And even then you can't see them at all without fixing and staining. Single-lens microscopes suffer from spherical abberation (only the centre of the image is in focus) and chromatic abberation (everything has rainbow fringes around it). These problems are worse with greater magnification. As far as I can tell, the best "mass-market" compound lenses these days are made in China. Source: I bought my son a microscope a few months ago; he said he wanted to see bacteria. I hoped a "junior" 'scope would get me off the hook, but I consulted suppliers, and they warned me off, and told me quite a lot about how to choose a 'scope. I also bought him a set of stains and solvents, including a gram-staining kit. I did a fair bit of research before I spent money.
  - monetus 3y ago
    Happen to blog about it, or have some links?
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
bloak 3y ago
Interesting. Modern optical microscopes, even cheap ones, do 1000x, though I seem to remember, from playing with a cheapish one, that it was very hard to get a worthwhile image at 1000x. Amazon.co.uk has a microscope for £54.59 that does "1600X" ... "for Kids"! The one I played with wasn't that cheap! According to random online articles, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) achieved 275x and a few of his instruments have survived until today, in museums, I presume.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  1600X seems like the lumens rating of Chinese bike lights on Amazon.
  - jimduk 3y ago
    The math for cheap amazon microscopes is often based on the ratio of a digital image. So use a 60" monitor rather than 30" you have an extra 2x magnification. But not better resolution!
nosianu 3y ago
Here's a Physics-Stackexchange answer with a little more detail i support: You can go higher but it won't help you because you won't see more. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-microscope-magnification-limits https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-mi... > ... > So for violet light λ=405nm, and good lens with oil immersion (NA=1.25), you can have resolution 197nm. > So, in conclusion, optical microscopes are limited to ~x1500 because going any further does not resolve smaller details. The comments below the answer add additional details. Related Wikipedia article (Diffraction-limited system): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system There are various "tricks" to achieve more -- "Super-resolution microscopy" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy > Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit.
ilyt 3y ago
I mean if it was "so far we haven't found evidence of any optical instrument of that magnitude available at that time", fair enough, but you're suggesting people didn't had oil few hundred years ago...
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  Not at all. But there's no point in going to oil-immersion microscopy, if you haven't yet invented compound lenses. Those are a 19th-century development.

fsckboy 3y ago

"tardigraves find a way." wikipedia: They have been found in diverse regions of Earth's biosphere – mountaintops, the deep sea, tropical rainforests, and the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other known forms of life. Tardigrades have survived exposure to outer space.

benj111 3y ago
So on some future space mining trip to the moon, these will some how get picked up, then after their long sleep, and some mutations from cosmic rays, will start taking out the crew one by one?
- Ygg2 3y ago
  No. Mutation doesn't imply it just morphed for dramatic purposes.
  - benj111 3y ago
    What if it got radioactive and then bit one of the crew who took on tardigrade qualities, and started taking out the crew? Or maybe a transporter incident where the tardigrades DNA merged with a humans, and it started taking out the crew? Or 25th century Meta started secret experiments on Luna tardigrades and decided they wanted to test their new weapon on the unsuspecting crew of some old transport ship?
    - ionwake 3y ago
      I too am waiting for ygg2s’ answers as he seems knowledgable on the subject
      - Ygg2 3y ago
        Wait, no more.

zabzonk 3y ago

possibly a failed attempt to infiltrate the nazi moon-base?

ggm 3y ago
But any humans of 1940s German origin up there would have brought tardigrades of their own.

tempodox 3y ago

(2019). I'd be interested to know whether that tardigrade image is actually a photo.

dotancohen 3y ago
> (2019) Interesting why this comes up now, then. > I'd be interested to know whether that tardigrade image is actually a photo. I'd imagine so. This is exactly what they do look like. Though this is the most detailed image I think that I've ever seen, it is not far beyond other images that I know for certain are not renders.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  It doesn't appear to be standing on anything though - could it have been suspended in a liquid of the same density as itself? Despite the image being credited to Getty Images, I couldn't find it in their catalogue.
  - dotancohen 3y ago
    > could it have been suspended in a liquid of the same density as itself Water?

paraiuspau 3y ago

Possibility to evolve ability to utilise cosmic mycelial network for fast travel?

transfire 3y ago
LOL

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

The chances that none of the made-made objects that touched the moon carried a few tardigrades is very small anyway. The idea we can move so far away with such complicated processes without any contamination is just a dream, no matter the precautions we take. We can just limit it to the minimum, which is already quite amazing. So the israeli ones are just the one we know about.

noduerme 3y ago
> So the israeli ones are just the one we know about. Yes, but much easier to condemn in the General Assembly.
- n1b0m 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - localplume 3y ago
    [dead]
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  Establishing an apartheid state tends to do that, yes.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Yes, those tardigrades should go back where they came from! Free the crater!
djigrucst 3y ago
you are handwaving decades of strict anti contamination protocol. with all respect, you sound like someone spreading anti vax theories.

yyyk 3y ago

This shows the difference between physics and drama. Physics tells us nothing much happened. Drama tells us they survived, they evolved, and are just waiting for their water-thirsty revenge...

dfee 3y ago

Aliens exist! Tardigrades, sure. But they're out there!

benj111 3y ago
Tardigrades aren't aliens, they're emigrants. Of course from the moon people's pov, they are aliens.
- dfee 3y ago
  Does the term apply like that? At what point would they become alien - small or significant evolution? Is there a right answer?
  - benj111 3y ago
    google gives the definition "supposedly from another world". tardigrades are from this world. i wouldnt define a mars born human as alien, so i wouldnt say its based on where that generation was born either. evolutionarily, i suppose for me the dividing line is when the creature has evolved to the point where its more at home in its new habitat than its old. i dont think youre ever going to get a bullet proof, exceptionless definition though.
    - dingaling 3y ago
      > tardigrades are from this world. There are plenty of them here, but did they evolve on Earth or arrive from elsewhere...?
      - benj111 3y ago
        Have you got any particular evidence? We could hypothecate that God made them, that isn't really science though.
      - chatmasta 3y ago
        They are DNA-based organisms, like every other known life form, all of which evolved on Earth, so it seems reasonable to assume they evolved here too. Of course you might hypothesize that DNA is a building block of life that is not unique to Earth, but that's a whole other can of worms...

kplex 3y ago

Make My Day on Netflix now makes a lot more sense.

amichal 3y ago

Someone did some research on if they could have survived... doesn't seem likely https://www.science.org/content/article/hardy-water-bears-survive-bullet-impacts-point https://www.science.org/content/article/hardy-water-bears-su...

0xbadc0de5 3y ago

Don't worry, they'll be fine. ;)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cuSetanta 3y ago

As someone who has worked onmultiple spacecraft, including a lunar lander, this is no surprise. Cleanrooms are great but ISO 8 (the most common cleanliness standard for spacecraft manufacture) isnt perfect. Missions to Mars and other planets have much much stricter cleanliness requirements, so much so that it becomes a real barrier to work and cost. I quite enjoy the idea that some of my DNA is now on the moon.

d35007 3y ago
Are cleanliness standards relevant in this context? As far as I can tell, the tardigrades — and everything else mentioned in the article — were put there on purpose.
- TheCleric 3y ago
  I think the overall point is that while this was purposeful, the cleanliness standards mean that this has likely already occurred accidentally.

api 3y ago

Soon: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CWhJhtI4FMk/XCJToVW3rfI/AAAAAAAAKjA/NOyDCc01JuMI0g-dtK_49lQtmq2MdEYEQCLcBGAs/s1600/attack_of_the_tardigrades_by_ramul%2Bcopy.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CWhJhtI4FMk/XCJToVW3rfI/AAAAAAAAK...

airesearcher 3y ago

It was said there was hummus on the Moon which may explain why Israel sent the tardigrades. In any case, the alleged tardigrades were actually in the “tun state” (dehydrated) and on a 1 cm square piece of tape that was embedded in epoxy resin. Therefore if they were not vaporized by the impact of the crash they would be preserved but unable to reanimate… This is why NATO has sent several secret resupply missions with solvent, tiny water bottles, and pita bread, in recent years. But so far all attempts to rehydrate the tardigrades have also crashed.

2h 3y ago
[flagged]
- A_non_e-moose 3y ago
  [flagged]

ElfinTrousers 3y ago

I got a postcard from the tardigrades the other day. They're fine and they say hi.