Credit & Copyright: Nicole Ottawa & Oliver Meckes / Eye of Science /
Science Source Images
Explanation:
Is this an alien?
Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the
tardigrade might be the best candidate.
That's because
tardigrades
are known to be able to go for decades without food or water,
to survive temperatures from near
absolute zero
to well above the boiling point of water,
to survive pressures from near zero to well above that on
ocean floors,
and to survive direct exposure to dangerous
radiations.
The far-ranging survivability of these
extremophiles was
tested
in 2011 outside an orbiting space shuttle.
Tardigrades are so durable partly because they can repair their own
DNA
and reduce their body water content to a few percent.
Some of these
miniature
water-bears
almost became
extraterrestrials in 2011 when they were launched toward to the Martian moon
Phobos, and again in 2021 when they were launched toward
Earth's own moon, but the
former launch failed, and the
latter landing crashed.
Tardigrades are more common than
humans across most of the Earth.
Pictured here in a color-enhanced
electron micrograph, a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on
moss.
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