A Russian satellite crash landed in a field south west of Moscow earlier this month while carrying some unusual cargo: about 1,500 flies, 75 mice, seeds, a bunch of microbes, and various cell tissues.
The Bion-M No 2 satellite’s mission was to study the impact of space on these critters, but to also test the wild concept — a theory called panspermia — that life came to Earth via microorganisms hitching a ride on a comet, meteor or asteroid.
To test the panspermia theory, scientists had inserted strains of bacterial microbes into basalt rocks and embedded them into the spacecraft’s shell, in order to see whether the microorganisms would be able to survive the fiery descent back to Earth, according to Russian officials in a Telegram post. The flight was a collaborative project by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP).
“If any of these studied strains survive, it will be strong evidence supporting the theory of lithopanspermia,” said Alexander Anatolyevich, a researcher at IMBP, in the Telegram post; lithopanspermia, a subset of panspermia, is a theory where debris from exoplanets, leftovers from an asteroid impact, float into space and then in turn crash into other planets while seeding them with microbes that could jumpstart life.
No word yet on the status of the space-faring microbes, but dramatic photos from Russian officials on Telegram flagged by Space.com showed scientists cracking open the singed-looking spacecraft and removing metallic cylinders.
The Russian satellite launched into space on August 20 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a space port in Kazakhstan, with its precious package of science experiments. It then orbited around Earth for 30 days in a region in space higher than the International Space Station.
“They will help scientists understand how space phenomena affect living organisms in the range where the level of cosmic radiation is approximately 30 per cent higher than in near-Earth orbit,” read one Telegram post from Roscosmos, as reported by The National. “This is important for preparing people for long-distance space flights.”
After the spacecraft landed on September 19, Russian officials in another Telegram post admitted that ten out of the 74 mice seemed to have perished, with no word on status of the flies and other specimens.
This isn’t the first time scientists have sent animals into orbit. Back in June 1948, the United States sent a rhesus monkey named Albert I into space from White Sands, New Mexico, beginning a long chain of questionable creature experiments by American and Russian scientists that have seen cats, dogs and more dying while in space or after crashing back to land.
Adventurous microbes in space — as tough as the ones found in the most inhospitable parts of Earth — are presumably made of sterner stuff, and that’s a good thing for anybody rooting for the possibilities of life elsewhere.
More on comets: Extremophiles, Comets, and Alien Organisms: How did life on Earth Begin?