This is old news, but very interesting in that it helps add to the growing evidence that extremophiles can live in extremely harsh environs and lay dormant for hundreds of thousands of years, possibly millions, under extreme cold and pressure deep within a a solid mass, and be resurrected under the right circumstances.
What does this mean? Well, asteroid impacts are very common geologically speaking. Massive asteroids do in fact eject large bits of planetary material into space during an impact event. Know this, and putting 2 and 2 together, it’s not a far jump to conclude that if a microbe can survive ultra low freezing temperatures, under extreme pressures (3 kilometers deep in glacial ice) and survive for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years, then it’s not just possible that microbes could survive within a large piece of ejecta debris, but they could survive long enough to be transported to another planetary body.
Now, this is not to say that the microbes will survive atmospheric entry and the impact with another planetary body, but it’s possible.
A lot more research needs to be done in this area before we can determine the survival of microbes under these circumstances. There are lots of variables involved.
In the meantime, this is interesting and extremely intriguing. It’s exciting to think that if a microbe survives that long inside a body in space, how far could it travel in 120,000 years going 25,000 MPH.
120,000 years is a long time. The question arises, how long can the microbes survive?
Read more on this fascinating microbe below.
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Tiny Frozen Microbe May Hold Clues To Extraterrestrial Life
ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — A novel bacterium — trapped more than three kilometres under glacial ice in Greenland for over 120,000 years — may hold clues as to what life forms might exist on other planets.
SOURCE: Science Daily - Tiny Frozen Microbe May Hold Clues To Extraterrestrial Life.
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