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They can go dormant in extreme conditions they can’t thrive in such conditions. It’s a bit of a myth with these. They need similar conditions to multiply as all
by AnotherGoodName 2y ago
They can go dormant in extreme conditions they can’t thrive in such conditions. It’s a bit of a myth with these. They need similar conditions to multiply as all other life. If you put them temporarily in an extreme condition they can go dormant and come back when conditions are better.
FWIW we trade so much material with outer space (super volcanos etc) that if life could colonize space that easily it would have done so billions of years ago.
- joshdavham 2y agoThis brings up an interesting question though. Could we create a minimially viable living environment for these extremophiles to survive on other planets? For humans, we'd need pretty incredible technology to sustain life on mars, but for tardigrades, they could probably survive with a lot less.
- kombookcha 2y agoThere's surviving, and there's thriving - tardigrades could probably hang out in a Mars crater for a long time, but what they'd need to sustainably live on an alien planet is something to eat during the periods where conditions are right for them to thaw out. If there's nothing for them to wake up to, they won't be making anymore tardigrades. Say, a very hardy algae that could make it in some suitable microbiome - like humid cracks in the rocks, or a fungus that could hang out in underground caverns shielded from UV radiation. If we are trying to seed a place with life where we can't reliably go ourselves, it seems important that the 'colony' should become self-sustaining immediately-ish. (Also I find the idea of launching swarms of micro-pods loaded up with hardy, tiny lifeforms endearing - like throwing seed bombs over a tall fence :) )
- pvaldes 2y agoAnd like that naive seed-bombs trend, they would do more harm that good.