Hardy bugs could survive a million years on Mars

It was already nicknamed “ Conan the bacteria ” for its ability to hold up radiation . Now it seems Deinococcus radiodurans could , in possibility , come through abeyant on Mars for over a million years .

Lewis Dartnellat University College London and colleagues froze the bugs to -79 ° C , the ordinary temperature at Mars ’s mid - latitudes . Then they nuke them with gamma irradiation to imitate the dose they would receive under 30 centimeter of Martian soil over long periods of time .

The team worked out that it could take 1.2 million twelvemonth under these conditions to shrink a population of the bacteria to a millionth of its original size .

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early studies suggested that the bacterium can go four times as much radiation in the Martian cold as at room temperature . If a cell is frozen , radiation does less damage to it because the detached radicals it create are much less mobile . “ moth-eaten is good in that regard , ” Dartnell say . “ It amend the prospect of cells surviving radiation . ”

Antarctic bugs

Dartnell ’s team also isolated three new strains of bacteria from theDry Valleys of Antarctica , where wintertime temperatures send away to -40 ºC.

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The hardiest of the bugs , a raw strain of Brevundimonas , could hang on for 117,000 years on Mars before its universe would be reduced by a factor of a million , the team ’s piece of work suggest .

“ The more we see about Earth life , the more likely it appears that itcould survivein other parts of the solar arrangement , ” says Cassie Conley of NASA in Washington DC .

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But even if terrestrial microbes could survive on Mars itself , they might not get along so well on the journeying there , she monish . To sham space travel , she suggests that the experiment be repeated in a high-pitched vacuum , which can desiccate bug . “ In space , you suck off most all the water molecule , ” Conley say . This removal of pee could make it more difficult for prison cell to repair radiation damage .

Conley , who ensure NASA missions minimise the danger of contaminate other worlds with microbe , says the agency ’s policy on planetary protection already takes into account that some bug are amazingly radiotherapy resistant .

“ The policy is that we wo n’t contaminate other planets or moons , because just one colonising event could screw up our power to study indigenous living incessantly , ” she order New Scientist .

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