tossed salad in space

(an update)

Adding a new line of evidence for panspermia, the hypothesis that life on Earth was seeded by interstellar matter, lichens can survive two weeks in the harsh conditions of space.

Once in Earth orbit, the lid of the container opened and the samples were exposed to the space environment for nearly 15 days before the lid resealed and the capsule returned to Earth.

The lichens were subjected to the vacuum of space and to temperatures ranging from -20°C on the night side of the Earth, to 20°C on the sunlit side. They were also exposed to glaring ultraviolet radiation of the Sun.

“To our big surprise, everything went fine after the flight,” says Rene Demets, ESA’s project scientist for the Foton project. “The lichens were in exactly the same shape as before flight.”

But can they survive two weeks in a house full of washed-up celebrities? Now that's an experiment worth funding.