留在月球上的生物

留在月球上的生物

You've heard of men on the moon -- but what about moss piglets?

你聽說過人類登上月球——但是苔蘚小豬呢?

Thousands of tardigrades -- also known as "water bears" or "moss piglets" -- were on board the Beresheet spacecraft when it crash landed on the moon in April.

今年4月，“貝雷賽特”號宇宙飛船在月球著陸時，數千只緩步動物——也被稱為“水熊”或“苔蘚小豬”——都在飛船上。

The tiny creatures are incredibly hardy and can survive extremely low temperatures and harsh conditions-- and The Arch Mission Foundation, which sent them into space, believes some may have survived.

這種微小的生物非常耐寒，能夠在極低的溫度和惡劣的條件下生存。將它們送入太空的Arch任務基金會認為，其中一些可能已經存活了下來。

Tardigrades are pudgy little animals no longer than one millimeter. They live in water or in the film of water on plants like lichen or moss, and can be found all over the world in some of the most extreme environments, from icy mountains and polar regions to the balmy equator and the depths of the sea.

緩步動物是一種矮胖的小動物，體長不超過一毫米。它們生活在水中或地衣或苔蘚等植物的水膜中，在世界各地一些最極端的環(huán)境中都能找到它們，從冰冷的山脈和極地地區(qū)到溫暖的赤道和海洋深處。

In an attempt to create a "Noah's ark" or a "back-up" for the Earth, non-profit organization The Arch Mission sent a lunar library -- a stack of DVD-sized disks that acts as an archive of 30 million pages of information about the planet -- to the moon. Along with the library, Arch Mission sent human DNA samples and a payload of tardigrades, which had been dehydrated, into space.

為了給地球創(chuàng)造一個“諾亞方舟”或“后備”，非營利組織Arch Mission向月球發(fā)送了一個月球圖書館——一堆dvd大小的磁盤，相當于一個包含3000萬頁地球信息的檔案庫。隨著圖書館的建立，Arch任務將人類DNA樣本和一組已經脫水的緩步動物送入太空。

"We chose them because they are special. They are the toughest form of life we know of. They can survive practically any planetary cataclysm. They can survive in the vacuum of space, they can survive radiation," Nova Spivack, co-founder of the Arch Mission Foundation, told CNN.

“我們選擇它們是因為它們很特別。它們是我們所知道的最艱難的生命形式。它們幾乎可以在任何行星災難中幸存。他們可以在太空的真空中生存，他們可以在輻射中生存，”Arch任務基金會的聯合創(chuàng)始人Nova Spivack告訴CNN。

Tardigrades have eight legs with claws at the end, a brain and central nervous system, and a sucker-like pharynx behind their mouth, which can pierce food.

緩步動物有八條腿，末端有爪子，一個大腦和中樞神經系統，嘴巴后面有一個像吮吸器一樣的咽，可以刺穿食物。

The Arch Mission put the creatures into a state of "suspended animation," where the body dries out and the metabolism slows to as little as 0.01% of its normal rate.

Arch的任務讓這些生物進入“假死”狀態(tài)，在這種狀態(tài)下，身體會變干，新陳代謝速度會減慢到正常速度的0.01%。

The Arch Mission also sent a 30 million-page library along for the ride.

Arch的使命還為這次旅程提供了一個3000萬頁的圖書館。

"In that state you can later rehydrate them in a laboratory and they will wake up and be alive again," Spivack explained.

斯皮瓦克解釋說:“在這種狀態(tài)下，你可以在實驗室里給它們補水，然后它們就會醒過來，重新活過來。”

Although the animals won't be able to reproduce or move around in their dehydrated state -- if they have survived the crash -- if rehydrated they could come back to life years later.

盡管這些動物無法在脫水狀態(tài)下繁殖或活動——如果它們在沖擊事故中幸存下來——但如果重新補水，它們可以在數年后復活。

"We don't often get a chance to land life on the moon that we decided to seize the day and send some along for the ride," Spivack added.

斯皮瓦克補充說:“我們很少有機會將生命降落在月球上，所以我們決定抓緊時間，送一些生命到月球上去。”