Astronomy – Creatures released on Moon

Back in April, an Israeli lunar lander named Beresheet (Hebrew for “In The Beginning”) crashed on the moon. Part of the payload came from a non-profit foundation named the Arch Mission Foundation.

This payload was meant to be an informational ‘back-up’ of humanity and the Earth. It had a DVD which contained 30 million pages of human knowledge, as well as 60,000 etched pages requiring no computer to read, keys to 5000 languages, and DNA samples from 25 people.

Nova Spivack, the chairman of the foundation stated that in the event of a global catastrophe, this informational library, parked on the Moon, could be sufficient to “regenerate the human race.”

Then last month, they came clean.

Also included was a postage stamp sized piece of tape. On this tape were about 10,000 microscopic animals called tardigrades. These creatures are also known as “water bears”. Thousands more were sealed in a resin layer which coated the DVD.

Tardigrades are amazing creatures. They are around 0.05 to 1.2 millimetres long and have tubby bodies and eight legs tipped with tiny ‘hands’. When there is a lack of water, these animals can go into a dormant state for decades. They can survive boiling (149°C), freezing (-200°C) and the vacuum and radiation of space. Basically a moon crash means nothing to them.

The only thing needed to reanimate them is water. Recently water ice has been discovered in abundance on the moon – often in the shadows of craters. A lunar crash could easily have melted some of this ice. If conditions are right, some of this melted ice could persist long enough for a colony of living tardigrades to form.

This is a bit of scaremongering. Actually their chances of forming a colony are very low. Even if the tardigrades did somehow find liquid water while still on the moon, without food, air and a moderate ambient temperature, they wouldn’t last very long once they revived. They are also susceptible to Ultra Violet light which is found in abundance on the moon.

Technically, international guidelines on interplanetary contamination don’t prohibit sending biological matter and organisms to the lunar surface, since most living creatures can’t survive there. But no governing body had a say in the tardigrades at all. The Arch Mission team had approval to add a digital library on the lander, but they didn’t inform Israel or the United States about the added water bears.

This raises important questions. Should we be sending animals up to the moon in the first place? Is it ethical? Should there be any accountability for planetary and lunar protection?
We sent nearly indestructible creatures up to a world we barely know or understand. Will we do the same thing to Mars, Titan, Europa or Enceladus, especially with recent growth in the private space industry?

These are important questions and considerations we should be making before we attempt to colonize Mars and beyond.

If you go outside this week and look up at the moon, think of the thousands of tardigrades stranded there.