houdini that wrote:someone at apod needs to explain the circular appendage by the mouth?
wikipedia does not show anything like that in the buccal tube area.
it looks like a computer generated image that has been photoshopped.
It is a scanning electron microscope image that has had color photoshopped in to replicate the actual environment, as electron microscopes produce black-and-white images.
smitty wrote:Thank you for this helpful information. I continue to believe that intentionally running the risk of seeding extraterrestrial bodies with life forms from Earth is a very bad idea! I hope those in charge of future missions will reconsider.
It was considered in great detail, and they applied NASA's standards of planetary protection, including submitting their plans to NASA for review, to ensure accidental contamination would not result. Furthermore, Phobos is an environment inhospitable to life even for tardigrades. They might survive in their dormant state for a while if something went wrong, but they'd never be able to reproduce, and even in their dormant state would eventually die.
hotspot wrote:What is their known life span? Can they be crossbred?
And I guess another curious question could be... why exactly did Fobos-Grunt recently attempt to crash-land these Tardigrades onto the surface of Phobos? Very interesting detail really. Perhaps a better mission in the future could be to land a probe on Phobos (or Mars?) to detect if there are living, existing Tardigrades present?
The goal was not to crash-land. It was to soft-land, do an extensive study of Phobos, then return a soil sample to earth for study. The tardigrades were not the main mission. Just a tag-along.
We have other missions studying the surface of Mars as we speak. They're not specifically looking for life, because we're not actually expecting to find any on the surface in the present day, but they do have instruments that could give strong indicators life is there if they did encounter it.
[quote="houdini that"]someone at apod needs to explain the circular appendage by the mouth?
wikipedia does not show anything like that in the buccal tube area.
it looks like a computer generated image that has been photoshopped.[/quote]
It is a scanning electron microscope image that has had color photoshopped in to replicate the actual environment, as electron microscopes produce black-and-white images.
[quote="smitty"]Thank you for this helpful information. I continue to believe that intentionally running the risk of seeding extraterrestrial bodies with life forms from Earth is a very bad idea! I hope those in charge of future missions will reconsider.[/quote]
It was considered in great detail, and they applied NASA's standards of planetary protection, including submitting their plans to NASA for review, to ensure accidental contamination would not result. Furthermore, Phobos is an environment inhospitable to life even for tardigrades. They might survive in their dormant state for a while if something went wrong, but they'd never be able to reproduce, and even in their dormant state would eventually die.
[quote="hotspot"]What is their known life span? Can they be crossbred?
And I guess another curious question could be... why exactly did Fobos-Grunt recently attempt to crash-land these Tardigrades onto the surface of Phobos? Very interesting detail really. Perhaps a better mission in the future could be to land a probe on Phobos (or Mars?) to detect if there are living, existing Tardigrades present?[/quote]
The goal was not to crash-land. It was to soft-land, do an extensive study of Phobos, then return a soil sample to earth for study. The tardigrades were not the main mission. Just a tag-along.
We have other missions studying the surface of Mars as we speak. They're not specifically looking for life, because we're not actually expecting to find any on the surface in the present day, but they do have instruments that could give strong indicators life is there if they did encounter it.