2024-01-18 10:34:10
Updated Thursday, January 18, 2024 – 09:34
China has sent a primitive terrestrial microorganism into space to study whether it can survive in conditions similar to those of Marte and help solve the mystery of the possible existence of extraterrestrial life.
The microorganism, belonging to the group of you arch and which is found in environments without oxygen such as the bottom of the sea, rice fields or the stomachs of ruminants, was transported in the last few hours by the cargo ship Tianzhou-7 to the Chinese space station, where it will undergo an experiment of exposure to cosmic radiation, microgravity and extreme temperatures.
The teacher Liu Zhufrom the Department of Earth System Sciences of the Tsinghua Universityexplained that the experiment aims to check whether this archaea, one of the oldest life forms on Earth and one of the main producers of methane in the atmosphere, can live in an environment similar to that of Mars, reported the state channel CCTV.
According to the expert, this experiment could provide a new perspective to explore the possible existence of life on other planets, especially on Mars, where the American probe Curiosity It has detected signals of methane of unknown origin several times.
Scientists have speculated that this methane could be the result of the metabolism of some type of extraterrestrial organism, and that methane-producing archaea could be one of the potential life forms on Mars or the Earth. moon Titn of Saturn.
However, current techniques do not allow for ‘in situ’ detection of signs of extraterrestrial life on Mars or other planets, due to high cost and low precision.
Therefore, Liu proposed carrying out a reverse verification experiment, that is, sending an archaea into space and seeing if it can adapt and produce methane.
“If it can survive and grow in that environment, then it could be shown that primitive life on Earth can exist and develop in an extraterrestrial environment. This would also give us a big clue that the methane found on Mars could have a biological origin, and that this life could be homologous to that on Earth,” Liu said.
The Tiangong space station, which will operate for about ten years, is likely to become the world’s only space station from 2024 if the International Space Stationan initiative led by the United States and to which China is prohibited from accessing due to the military ties of its space program, is withdrawing this year as planned.
China has invested heavily in its space program and has achieved successes such as landing on the moon. Chang’e 4 probe on the far side of the Moon – the first time it has been achieved – and reach Mars for the first time, becoming the third country – after the United States and the extinct Soviet Union – to ‘land’.
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