YOU’D be forgiven for thinking that tardigrades, also known as water bears, are aliens on Earth.
The microscopic creatures are so bizarre that they’ve left some scientists wondering if they arrived here on a meteorite.
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The tiny creatures mostly live in aquatic environments but can exist anywhere, including on your face.
Studies have found they can survive without water and temperatures around 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
As a blog from the Ohio State University explains: “Some theorize that tardigrades traveled to Earth millions of years ago via meteorite.
“Traces of biotic material have been found on 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia.
“Some think that they arrived here randomly and it has even been theorized that intelligent extraterrestrial beings deposited tardigrades on Earth to spawn life.”
The U.S. Sun spoke to Jonathon Stone, also known as Doc Roc, about the hypothesis.
Stone works as an Associate Professor at McMaster University in Canada.
“The Panspermia Hypothesis is one explanation for why life exists on Earth, the suggestion being that ‘life’ arose somewhere else and spread across space and over time.
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“The word, itself, translates to ‘all seed,’ and was promoted most notably by Arrhenius, who suggested that life spread like seeds across outer space by cosmic forces such as radiation pressure,” he said.
When asked whether tardigrades could be considered aliens, Stone was skeptical.
He said: “Water bears (or tardigrades, ‘slow walkers’) are microscopic animals, and most people are unfamiliar with that ‘world’ (students often describe their first time examining pond water under a microscope as ‘entering another world’).
“I suppose that some species appear alien-like (i.e., in the ‘Hollywood’ movie sense, they have been used in several major productions, like ‘Ant Man & Wasp’ for instance).”
He also thinks their ability to survive extreme conditions has contributed to their “un-Earthly reputation.”
Tardigrades are also known for potentially being the second species to reach the moon.
Back in 2019, the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed into the moon while carrying thousands of the creatures as part of a scientific experiment.
Some experts believed there was a very high chance they survived the crash.
Dr. Stone does not believe the creatures can be considered aliens and has a more logical explanation.
He said: “Even as recently as 225 years ago, people who never had seen a duckbill platypus thought that the sketches provided by explorers constituted a hoax.
“But the overwhelming majority of data suggests that every living entity that we so far have discovered on Earth ultimately descended from a common ancestor.
“When I take students fossil hunting, the specimens that we uncover sometimes are representatives that no longer exist (e.g. trilobites). These and other ancient animals look alien.”
