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| The Starlight program aims to use lasers to propel small spacecraft to the nearest galaxy. Philip Lubin, University of California |
Tardigrades are already some of the hardiest known creatures in our Solar System, and are likely to outlive everything until our Sun eventually swells up and becomes a red giant. But it is now looking very likely that the little moss piglets will also become the first known interstellar species.
Piglets and the humble
nematode worm will be the first passengers on a spacecraft to visit our next closest star. The
two creatures are pretty safe bets for the incredible journey out of our Solar System.
Tardigrades, which are also known adorably as water bears, and nematode worms (Caenorhabditis
elegans) are both known for their unusual ability to survive tough
environments.
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| Moss piglets can even survive the vacuum of space. 3Dstock/Shutterstock |
From being blasted with high
levels of radiation to being frozen in extremely cold temperatures to
being dehydrated to just 1 percent of water by weight, water
bears are the natural choice for such a dangerous trip. Nematode worms are
also a good candidate – we have mapped their entire genome, so
we know what every one of their 900-odd cells do.
“We are developing the
capability to test whether terrestrial life as we know it can exist in
interstellar space by preparing small life-forms… C. elegans and
radiation-resistant tardigrades… which are ideal candidates to be our first
interstellar travelers.”
The team are currently
working on how they can safely store the tiny critters in a state known as
anhydrobiosis, so that at some specific points in time during the voyage, they
can be woken up again and observed, before being sent back into
stasis. They hope that the mission will not only provide us
with a better understanding of how to survive these journeys, but also
insight into the ability of life in general to spread across the
stars.
Despite over 60 years of
space travel, only one spacecraft, that of Voyager 1, has ever left the Solar
System. Launching in 1977, it took Voyager over four decades to manage this
ground-breaking feat. At its current speed, however, it will take roughly
80,000 years for it to reach the next star in the Alpha Centauri System some
4.2 light-years away.
The aim of the Starlight
program, known as DEEP-IN (Directed
Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration), is to speed up this
commute.
Using photonic propulsion,
or lasers to you and me, they hope to send relativistic probes to Alpha
Centauri, with the journey taking roughly 24 years.
Via IFLScience