The first time a lot of us learned about extremophiles was when water bears from earth crash-landed on the moon. Extremophiles are a group of critters that can survive some of earth’s toughest environments like the bottom of the ocean or inside volcanos or polar ice.
In 2019 an unmanned space probe carrying Tardigrades – also known as water bears – accidentally crashed onto the moon’s surface. These tiny eight-legged aquatic animals were part of an experiment that went a little sideways and made a lot of news, mostly because everyone wanted to know if these critters (who dehydrate to the point of death) could ever wake up and take over the moon.
Well, scientists said probably not. This ended the drama, but not the interest in extremophiles.
Paul Nelson has been looking at extremophiles and he joined Idaho Matters to talk about them. He’s a retired senior engineer of DRAM research and development with Micron Technology.
Nelson will be talking about extremophiles on Nov. 19 at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute in Boise.
