Crash 'accidentally' seeds animals on moon - but scientists say were already there.. probably

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

In August a number of headlines have pointed to a previously obscure fact about a recent attempt at placing a lander on the moon by the nonprofit Israeli SpaceIL organization. That mission, which unfortunately failed to softly deposit a lander called Beresheet on the lunar surface on April 11, seems to have been carrying a set of thousands of dehydrated tardigrades as passengers.
Now, though, the specter of “deliberate” biocontamination of the Moon is getting some scrutiny. Tardigrades, the tiny “water-bears,” are extraordinarily resilient life-forms. For a field like astrobiology, looking for life beyond Earth, one of the biggest challenges in our solar system is to avoid creating false-positives by allowing terrestrial biomarkers or actual organisms into alien environments.
But at the same time, we know that nature has been busy cross-contaminating worlds for the past 4 billion years. And hardy little critters like tardigrades have likely already been deposited far beyond Earth. The mechanism involves asteroid impacts and so-called impact ejecta.

Like theres any reason to have dehydrated (dormant) invertebrate animal life on an Unmanned lunar lander anyway. Then it conveniently crashed onto the moon (allegedly) spilling these dormant animals out onto the lunar surface (see thenewdaily.com.au...).
But a couple months later scientific american steps in to mitigate the damage, reminding us these animals probably made it to the lunar surface before the(se) crash landing(s) anyways, because of projectile panspermia from asteroid impacts.
How scientific!

a reply to: tulsi

Sometimes I think Israel goes to far. The Palestinians were just talking about relocating to the moon. These preemptive strikes based on potential threats are going to far!!!

a reply to: tulsi

Like theres any reason to have dehydrated (dormant) invertebrate animal life on an Unmanned lunar lander anyway.

Yeah , raises a question doesn't it ?

While panspermia is possible I doubt it in the case of life transferring from Earth to the Moon.

a reply to: tulsi

I believe the point was to see if they could eventually be rehydrated.

Yep if I wanted live sea monkeys on the moon and/or mars i'd send them there as dry eggs cuz theyd probably die en route if not shipped dormant.

Mad science panspermaniacs!

a reply to: tulsi

Its in the Bible

Israel, gods favoured people.

"Tardigrades; go forth and multiply!"

Smoke a banana peel and dig on this trip.

a reply to: tulsi

They can't live in the moon. They will either be destroyed or at best frozen in time. There won't be any tardigraves walking on the moon.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

I reckon they could live on the Moon personally. They are the toughest creatures on Earth and can survive in space and radiation.

After China supposedly found a gel-like substance on the Moon, that could be their food and water source to survive.

a reply to: Moohide

Then you reckon wrong. They can not survive 'living' in space. They have a chance of remaining intact enough to be rehydrated from their desiccated state after being in space. They have zero function though in that state, it is a state of suspended animation.

Also there is no gel substance on the moon. It's bad translations. It's likely glass the Chinese were talking about, especially since the word the Chinese used means glass, or shiny.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04
Yes, glass formed after a meteor strike.

The point?

Sometimes the point of science is to see what happens.

It's a good thing they can't function on the moon. There's nothing for them to eat there ... except each other. Think of the movie title from that:

Cannibal Tardigrades of the Moon!

I believe that no matter how cautious we are about not contaminating other worlds with life from Earth, it's bound to happen, there is no way to avoid it. Just the fact that people are in space and have been on the Moon has likely caused this to happen already.

Dust mites, bacteria, fungus, and a host of other organisms have gone with us in to outer space, the space station is a cesspool of microbes from what I read. If humans are the vehicle for other organisms to get off the Earth and perhaps thrive out there, then great, humans have a purpose after all.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: tulsi

Like theres any reason to have dehydrated (dormant) invertebrate animal life on an Unmanned lunar lander anyway.

Yeah , raises a question doesn't it ?

While panspermia is possible I doubt it in the case of life transferring from Earth to the Moon.

This kind of expertinent is normal, they've been doing on th iss for years. experimenting on Extreophiles has been done for decades in Space.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

This kind of expertinent is normal, they've been doing on th iss for years. experimenting on Extreophiles has been done for decades in Space.

The ISS experiments are contained and observable , the Moon isn't the ISS.
Given the other cargo that was aboard the Beresheet spacecraft I suspect an ulterior motive.

a reply to: gortex

The cargo was a trove of life on Earth. Tardigraves are known to be able to survive in space while desiccated. It seems to fit with the rest of the cargo.

I can't think of any ulterior motive, as the tardigraves will simply die on the moon.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

I can't think of any ulterior motive, as the tardigraves will simply die on the moon.

The Tardigrades weren't the only cargo , my suspicion for an ulterior motive stems from the rest of the payload.

The spacecraft carried a digital "time capsule" containing over 30 million pages of data, including a full copy of the English-language Wikipedia, the Wearable Rosetta disc, the PanLex database, the Torah, children's drawings, a children's book inspired by the space launch, memoirs of a Holocaust survivor, Israel's national anthem ("Hatikvah"), the Israeli flag, and a copy of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.[17][18][19][5][20] At the last minute, genetic samples and tardigrades were added in epoxy resin between the digital layers.
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: gortex

Yes. Tardigraves match the rest of the cargo. What motives do you think they had?

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Yes. Tardigraves match the rest of the cargo.

Really ? the DNA samples perhaps but the rest bears no relation to the Tardigrades.

What motives do you think they had?

What do you mean by "motives" ?