Microbes Are Going to Space...On Purpose!
What's New Monday: OSU and NASA Sending Microbes To Space
When I posted an article about how astronauts deal with microbes in space I didn’t think I would be touching on that subject again. Well, now they are purposely sending them. Oregon State University and NASA have teamed up to study how microbes react under low gravity…and they are excited about it!
The researchers are going to study microbial biofilms under low gravity.
We’re sending the samples to space to eliminate gravity so we can better understand the interplay between gravity and capillarity, and how each of these forces affect biofilm growth and architecture.
They are expecting to send the microbes off to space in 2025. While up there, they will run many scans and create 3D models of the biofilms for further study.
“We don’t know yet when we will be offered a spot on a space freighter, but we will likely need more than a year and a half to prep for sending the samples up and preparing the highly detailed protocols for the astronauts,”
I’ll keep an eye on this and see if any news comes out of it or if they send more microbes into orbit or further. That’s it for now!
Source
Bourgeois, Michaela. Oregon State University, NASA sending microbes to space for low gravity study. Nov, 2023. Yahoo.com.