Hardy germ could survive on Mars

摘要

It was already nicknamed "Conan the Bacterium" for its ability to withstand radiation. Now it seems Deinococcus radiodurans could, in theory, survive dormant on Mars for over a million years. Lewis Dartnell at University College London and colleagues froze the bugs to -79 ℃, the average temperature at Mars's mid-latitudes. Then they zapped them with gamma rays to simulate the dose they would receive in Martian soil over long periods of time. The team worked out that it would take 1.2 million years under these conditions to shrink a population of the bacteria to a millionth of its original size (Astrobiology, DOI: 10.1089/ ast.2009.0439).