IanLife in Extreme Environments
December 4th 2009 07:05
The speculation of life on other planets is rife, although no proof has been found as yet. When life is discovered somewhere other than Earth it will be an exciting day indeed.
To help up decide where to look for life, we can start on our own planet where some conditions are so extreme they are similar to other known worlds in the solar system. Surprisingly, these harsh environments can be teeming with life. Thanks to Mental_Floss here are some severe environments and life forms which can handle them. Read more here.
The Dead Sea has such a high saline content that pillars of salt form on its banks. Yet Halobacterium salinarum lives in its waters. Halobacterium is one of the most ancient of microbes, and depends more on light for survival than on oxygen. It adjusts its own needs according to the available light and oxygen.
Sinkholes deep beneath the Great Lakes have a very different chemical makeup from the water above. These pockets are filled with salt, acid, and sulfur, but have purple cyanobacteria that use sulfur instead of oxygen for photosynthesis. Other species that live too deep for sunlight to penetrate live on sulfur without photosynthesis.
The Socompa volcano is 20,000 feet high in the Andes mountains. Conditions there include little oxygen, lack of water, ultraviolet radiation, and methane. But scientists have found moss, algae, and over a hundred species of bacteria living in the shadow of Socompa. The area has been compared to Mars in its ability to sustain life.
Water Bears or Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Tardigrades occur over the entire world, from the high Himalayas (above 6,000 m), to the deep sea (below 4,000 m) and from the polar regions to the equator.
Some can survive temperatures of -273°C, close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151 °C (303 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals such as humans, more than a century without water, and even the vacuum of space. In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After they were returned to Earth, it was discovered that many of them survived and laid eggs that hatched normally, making these the only animals shown to be able to survive the vacuum of space.
Two miles beneath the ice of Vostok Research Station in Antarctica, a huge freshwater lake has been isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years. The water is below freezing temperature, but stays liquid because of the pressure from the ice above. Researchers have not yet broken through to the water, but samples of ice just above the lake reveal the presence of microbe fossils. The lake is saturated with oxygen due to the temperature and pressure, and has been compared with the environments of Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. There are plans to send down a probe called a cryobot, but extreme care will be taken to preserve the pristine conditions of the isolated lake.
To help up decide where to look for life, we can start on our own planet where some conditions are so extreme they are similar to other known worlds in the solar system. Surprisingly, these harsh environments can be teeming with life. Thanks to Mental_Floss here are some severe environments and life forms which can handle them. Read more here.
The Dead Sea
So Deep, Light Can't Penetrate
High-altitude Volcanos
Water Bears
Some can survive temperatures of -273°C, close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151 °C (303 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals such as humans, more than a century without water, and even the vacuum of space. In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After they were returned to Earth, it was discovered that many of them survived and laid eggs that hatched normally, making these the only animals shown to be able to survive the vacuum of space.
Beneath Antarctica?
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