Australian space company’s goal is to grow plants on the Moon by 2025 Lunaria One, Universities in the southern country and Israel, in collaboration with a Spanish start-up.
Participates in the moon project Space MadridIt is a private company consisting of young engineers specialized in thermal, structural and fluid mechanics. to guarantee correct operation in orbit of this mission (Beresheet II) and avoid what happened on April 11, 2019, when the Israeli probe Beresheet I (Genesis) crashed into the surface of an Earth satellite.
And landing on the moon is no easy task. For this reason, Israeli vehicle of SpaceIL company failed during landing and neither the probe software nor the ground equipment We managed to make a soft landingBeresheet crashed at a speed of approximately 500 kilometers per hour north of Mare Srenitatis, It completely disintegrates and scatters on the lunar surface. millions of tardigrades.
However, What are tardigrades?
targigatesAlso known as water bears anyone moss pigletsare invertebrates with eight legs smaller than one millimeter, so they might live on the moon.
Temperatures between 150°C and -270°C
Inside Beresheet was a capsule. With digital files containing the Torah (Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible), drawings made by Israeli students, a copy of the national anthem, an Israeli flag, books, photographs, songs and those mysterious tardigrades, some of them creatures that can survive Dried at temperatures between 150°C and -270°C, placed in suspended animation and placed in artificial amber.
Whether they survive or not is a mystery that Beresheet II cannot solve. Israel’s moon landing In a different location than the one chosen in 2019.
“Possibilities survival for tardigrades…extremely high,” according to American investor Nova Spivack.
Spanish scientist Alejandra Traspas attracted the attention of international scientific journals after obtaining promising results in her research. The most indestructible species in the worldtardigrades.
A tiny creature with eight legs
Tardigrade is an invertebrate It is 0.5 millimeters long, has eight legs, and is found in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.. Also known as water bear; Living without eating or drinking for 30 years. In other words, tardigrades can almost completely dehydrate and regenerate when conditions are right.
Tardigrades have also been found due to their ability to live in bottomless depths. volcanic vents on the ocean floor and in the cold climates of Antarctica. Similarly, they have been shown to survive in the vacuum of space and lethal doses of radiation. Despite all this, his ability to survive is undeniable.
Meteorites colliding with other planets have higher shock pressures than those tested in an experiment with these animals scattered across the moon; which means: tardigrades most likely did not survive the space impact.
“The probability is complicated but not impossible. The angle of impact and other conditions must be taken into account,” Traspas concludes.