• Question: Do you know if a micro organism would be able to survive on a different planet, or are there specific conditions they have to be in? An example would be if an astronaut went to the moon with a disease, would they still be affected by it? If so, would it be less or more affective?

    Asked by anon-186025 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 12 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      Good question!
      If the microbe was living in the person, it’s likely that they would be affected in the same way as down here on earth. Your body is a pretty constant environment, and something like HIV doesn’t mind where you are because your cells are the same.
      The big difference is that it is likely to transmit differently. Aside from examples where the microbe needs something in the environment to transmit, like malaria in a mosquito, or cholera through water, even something like flu might transmit differently. The temperature of the air affects how droplets that microbes are in move, and how long the stay in the air and are able to infect someone new.
      I would say that on the moon, you wouldn’t expect something like flu to transmit as well because I think because the air is so thin, the droplets wouldn’t stay there for long enough to infect someone new!

    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      We have identified many potential exoplanets around in the universe that could possibly sustain life. The conditions we look for are ones similar to our own planet with the same elemental make-up. Just because a planet looks like it could contain life though doesn’t mean it will….and to this point so far, no planets have shown any signs of life 👽
      .
      If an astronaut went to the moon or in to space, they are in space suits or space ships. These mimic conditions on earth minus the gravity to keep the astronauts alive. This means they will also keep the diseases alive too. Many astronauts are doing experiments on the international space station orbiting the earth though to explore this further to understand whether gravity can have an effect 👩‍🚀

    • Photo: Trystan Leng

      Trystan Leng answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      If someone already has a disease, and then travelled to another planet, they would still have the disease. If the person is in an environment where they can survive, so can the microorganisms!

      It depends on the microorganism whether they could survive on a different planet independently. All living things need energy to live, so they would have to be somewhere they could get their source of energy. Some microorganisms don’t need oxygen to live, so there is the possibility some microorganisms can live on planets that we couldn’t!

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