MICROBES may prove indispensable to deep space exploration, with researchers saying their presence is unavoidable and their potential benefits significant.
Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi live on and within the human body, as well as on surfaces and food, making it impossible to exclude them from space missions and critical to understand how they react to space conditions.
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Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Edinburgh studied how microbes extract platinum group elements from a meteorite in microgravity aboard the International Space Station, focusing on the potential of certain species to harvest essential minerals from rocks as a sustainable alternative to transporting resources from Earth.
The study, published in
Microgravity and led by Rosa Santomartino, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with research associate Alessandro Stirpe as co-author, found that biomining fungi were particularly effective at extracting palladium and that removing the fungus negatively affected non-biological leaching in microgravity.
Santomartino said it was probably the first experiment of its kind on the International Space Station on a meteorite, adding that microbes produce carboxylic acids that attach to minerals and facilitate their release, and that while applications may include more efficient biomining and sustainable biotechnologies for a circular economy, no single explanation yet exists for how microbes respond beyond Earth.
