It may be a case of bacteria and fungi can survive if they are placed there.
www.nature.com
It may be a case of bacteria and fungi can survive if they are placed there.
Survival of microorganisms during two-year exposure in outer space near the ISS - Scientific Reports
Results of an experiment named "Test" on survival and variability of microorganisms in open space near the International Space Station are presented. It was found after two-years exposure, spore-forming bacteria of the species Bacillus subtilis, fungi of the species Aureobasidium pullulans and...
Those studies were done because they found bacteria and fungus living and multiplying outside in the vacuum of low earth orbit in full exposure to the sun's radiation. I first found out about this issue because I was involved with a satellite project back in the early 1980s. A whole group was dedicated to cleaning the satellite so the instruments on it wouldn't be contaminated. At that time it was suspected that some Earth bacteria or fungus could survive in space due to peculiarities in discolorations on the exterior of Skylab. I think that was unpublished inside NASA knowledge at the time. Research for finding out what was causing the discolorations was planned, but the Shuttle wasn't ready before Skylab deorbited on it's own. Actual bacteria and fungus were cultured from samples taken from the outside of MIR. Research for that was published in Russian. Russia didn't believe it was an issue, then they found something aggressively growing on the exterior of one of MIR's windows.
It is KNOWN they are there on ISS. ISS modules were redesigned so they can be cleaned because of what they confirmed was happening on MIR. There are so many papers on ISS bacteria found I'm having issues finding the original research.
ISS Bacteria search. ISS external bacteria search. Google scholar is the place to go for searches like that. I suppose PubMed may have some too.
When the ISS is deorbited and descends through the atmosphere it will be heated to over 2,000F and enveloped by superheated plasma for over 15 minutes. The microbial life forms on the surface of the ISS won’t be able to live through that. Don’t worry about it.
That same superheated plasma that somehow didn't destroy all the organic chemicals on meteorites?
Very interesting. It's seems however, the use of the phrase "microbes may survive outside" suggests there's no evidence that they can survive. Very interesting!
The ones on the outside won't survive reentry. Inside, who knows. . .
As @Eka A pointed out, those organics were deep inside meteorites so well shielded from the high temperatures during re-entry. The intriguing ISS microbes we are discussing here are on the surface of the ISS. Of course inside the station there are plenty of typical human-related microbes but they won’t survive reentry either, they can only exist within a relatively narrow range of environmental conditions.
Oh, I think that extremophiles on the exterior of the ISS would survive. The station segments are large, they won't be broken up before reentry, and they won't be forced to tumble. The leading faces will get properly vaporized, but the leeward faces of sections that don't tumble (sufficiently) on their own just aren't going to see significant heating. Even with such heating, I wonder about the depth of the nooks and crannies of the station segments serving to protect bacteria.
hehe... awesome soundtrack link... haven't seen that movie for years... might be time for another viewing. Maybe a double feature with the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers... in memory of Sutherland.
