Tardigrade

The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet which crashed while attempting to land on the Moon was carrying a number of items including thousands of specimens of a living organism called tardigrade.

What are Tardigrades?

• The tardigrades are also known as water bears. It is among the toughest and most resilient creatures on Earth.
• The tardigrades which can only be seen under a microscope are half a millimetre long.
• It is essentially a water-dweller but also inhabits the land. The tardigrade can endure extreme hot and cold temperature levels.
• A 2008 study found that tardigrades can survive in the cold vacuum of outer space.
• Another study in 2017 found that even if all other life were to be wiped out by a cataclysmic event such as a large asteroid impact, a supernova or gamma-ray bursts, the tardigrade is the likeliest to survive.

Tardigrade: Physical Characteristics

• The tardigrade derives its name from the fact that it looks like an eight-legged bear, with a mouth that can project out like a tongue.
• Its body has four segments supported by four pairs of clawed legs.
• A tardigrade typically survives on fluids. It uses its claws and mouth to tear open plant and animal cells to suck nutrients out of them.
• It is also known to feast on bacteria and, in some cases, to kill and eat other tardigrades.
• Even though they are famed for their resilience, they are destructible too. If a human being swallows a tardigrade with the food, the stomach acid will cause the flesh of the tardigrade to disintegrate.

Will Tadigrades Survivein Moon?

The tardigrades on the spacecraft were dehydrated and they can come back to “come back to life” on rehydration. The tardigrades themselves expel water from their bodies and set off a mechanism to protect their cells, and can still revive if placed in the water later.

Although there is ice, there is no evidence of liquid water on the Moon. Without liquid water, it is possible that the tardigrades will remain in their current state unless future astronauts find them and revive them in water. On the contrary, some also suggest that he tardigrades might not last very long in the absence of food and air.