8-Legged Extremophile Freaks Will Outlive Humanity (& Maybe the Sun)
The eight-legged micro-animal called a tardigrade could survive nearly all the way until the death of the sun, a new study suggests — long after humans are history.
The study, from Harvard and Oxford universities, detailed the threats to life on Earth over billions of years, finding that Earth-pummeling asteroids, nearby supernova blasts, and gamma-ray bursts would be unlikely to completely sterilize Earth (taking out the little tardigrades in the process).
Tardigrades, which are usually less than a millimeter long (0.04 inches), are nearly indestructible, some of the most resilient forms of life on Earth. They can survive for up to 30 years without eating and can be frozen, boiled, squished under intense pressure, and exposed to the vacuum and radiation of space without ill effect. The animal, which lives in water (and is also known as a “water bear,” can survive for up to 60 years, according to a statement from the University of Oxford. [Earth’s ‘Alien’ Creatures May Reveal Clues About Extraterrestrial Life]
“‘A lot of previous work has focused on ‘doomsday’ scenarios on Earth — astrophysical events like supernovas that could wipe out the human race,” David Sloan, a co-author on the new work and researcher at Oxford, said in the statement. “Our study instead considered the hardiest species — the tardigrade. As we are now entering a stage of astronomy where we have seen exoplanets and are hoping to soon perform spectroscopy [on those planets], looking for signatures of life, we should try to see just how fragile this hardiest life is.”
“To our surprise, we found that although nearby supernovas or large asteroid impacts would be catastrophic for people, tardigrades could be unaffected,” he added. “Therefore, it seems that life, once it gets going, is hard to wipe out entirely. Huge numbers of species or even entire genera may become extinct, but life as a whole will go on.”
The researchers detailed what would happen with each of those threats in a new paper, released today (July 14) in the journal Scientific Reports.
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