Life is much more tenacious than we usually think, even when we take it out of its cradle and expose it to the most hostile environment we know: the emptiness of the outer space. And to carry out this test, a team of scientists has decided to take a moss and expose it to conditions outside of Earth, giving a result that opens a path for us on how to create new ecosystems on other planets.
The protagonist of this story is Physcomitrium patensor better known as primitive moss. And there were a series of Japanese researchers those who wanted to check What would happen if this little primitive moss was left outside the International Space Station.
The logical a priori thing would have been that he would have died instantly, since he did not have oxygen, the environment was really aggressive, with a lot of direct radiation as he did not have the protection of our ozone layer and logically he was not in his natural habitat. But the reality is that he has managed to endure the absolute emptiness and the cosmic radiation for 283 days.
But not only has it survived these conditions, but upon returning to Earth it has been planted and germinated. Without a doubt a great surprise in the face of the resistance that these organisms have.
A round trip. The research, led by biologist Tomomichi Fujita of Hokkaidō University and published in iScience, started from a premise that seemed like science fiction: can a primitive land plant withstand prolonged exposure to cosmic elements without protection?
To find out, in March 2022 they launched hundreds of samples aboard the ship Cygnus NG-17. Once on the ISS, the astronauts attached these samples to the outside of the station, orbiting at about 400 km altitude from the Earth’s surface. There they stayed for nine months, exposed to constant cycles of light and shadow, extreme cold, and relentless ultraviolet radiation.
In January 2023, the samples returned in a SpaceX capsule (mission CRS-16) and when analyzed in the laboratory, the results perplexed the researchers. More than 80% of the spores had survived and were able to germinate.
Not everything is the same. Just as two humans may not be equally resistant, something similar happens with mosses. In this research, we tried to verify the resistance of three types of fabric, but the winner was undoubtedly the sporophytewas the hardest fabric. Something that was already suspected, but the litmus test that this was was missing.
In terrestrial laboratories, stress is usually tested separately. That is, in a season an organism is exposed to heat, or cold, or high radiation. But in this case everything happens at the same time, and that is why it was expected that his survival would be null with this combination of factors.
But the reality is that the spores protected within the sporangium endured. And although the scientists noted a degradation of one type of chlorophyll due to visible light, the structural and genetic integrity of the plant remained intact enough to be “resurrected” upon returning home.
Its importance. Growing a moss on the surface of the ISS seems insignificant and a silly waste of money. But the reality is that this finding has two very important readings. The first looks towards the stars and the terraforming process.
It must be taken into account that mosses were the first plants to colonize land on our planet 500 million years ago. It can be said that they are natural pioneers thanks to the fact that they can settle on bare stones and then when they die, they generate soil where more complex plants later emerge.
In this way, if they can survive space travel and withstand extreme conditions, they could theoretically be the biological vanguard. in lunar or martian bases to help modify its atmosphere and ecosystem.
Something more urgent. Right now, our goal has to be to create crops that are more resistant to the extreme weather conditions we face on our planet. And the solution may lie in these spores and their genetics.
Understanding the mechanism that gives them this great resistance is vital so that we can modify seeds of other crops with the aim of conferring the same resistance. A vital step to face everything that may be yet to come to our planet.
Images | Mike Frandson POT
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