What Are Tardigrades – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

COMPARISON WITH PRAGYAN ROVER

BERESHEET

• On April 11, the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet attempted to land on the Moon, but crashed on the surface. It was carrying a number of items
• The spacecraft was carrying a lot of items, including first lunar library, a DVD-sized archive which had about 30 million pages of information, human DNA samples, plant cells, animal cells, and thousands of tardigrades.
• It is said that the Beresheet crash has released a number of Tardigrades or ‘water bears’ in the space.

THE TARDIGRADES

• The Tardigrades or ‘water bears’ can survive under pressures of up to 74,000 times the pressure felt on sea level. Essentially a water-dweller, they can stay in the dry state for extended periods of time until they find themselves in a more habitable environment or find water. A 2008 study found that Tardigrades can also survive in the cold vacuum of outer space.
• In a 2017 article published in Nature, it was found that even if all other life forms were to be wiped out by a cataclysmic event, possibly a large asteroid impact, a supernova or gamma-ray bursts, the tardigrades would be the likeliest to survive. This is because of their ability to endure extreme hot and cold temperature levels.

 WHAT’S THE CONCERN NOW? ARE WE POLLUTING THE MOON’S ATMOSPHERE?

• Scientists have yet to find any evidence that the moon ever hosted living organisms(other than visiting astronauts and microbial hitchhikers from Earth) that could be threatened by microscopic invaders. However, contamination could carry serious consequences for missions to planets where life might yet be found.
• There is already a fairly sizeable amount of debris from redundant spacecraft and litter left behind by astronauts. As more missions are planned to the moon, eventually with human passengers and perhaps even settlements, we must learn to clean up as we go along. Otherwise, we are going to have the sort of crisis that we are seeing on Earth with the outcry about environmental damage from plastics.

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