[bitontheslide]

The moon might now be home to thousands of planet Earth's most indestructible animals.

Tardigrades - often called water bears - are creatures under a millimetre long that can survive being heated to 150C and frozen to almost absolute zero.

They were travelling on an Israeli spacecraft that crash-landed on the moon in April.

And the co-founder of the organisation that put them there thinks they're almost definitely still alive.

The water bears had been dehydrated to place them in suspended animation and then encased in artificial amber.

"We believe the chances of survival for the tardigrades... are extremely high," Arch Mission Foundation boss Nova Spivack said.

The Arch Mission Foundation keeps a "backup" of planet Earth - with human knowledge and the planet's biology stored and sent out to various solar locations in case of a life-ending event.

The "lunar library" - something resembling a DVD that contains a 30-million-page archive of human history viewable under microscopes, as well as human DNA - was being carried on the Beresheet robot lander.

And alongside them were dehyrdrated tardigrades - some in amber and some stuck on tape.

For most creatures there would be no coming back from being dehydrated - life without water is almost impossible.

But water bears - which have another very cute nickname, moss piglets - are not most animals.

They can be brought back to life decades after being dehydrated.

Scientists have found that tardigrades have what seems almost like a super power.

When dried out they retract their heads and their eight legs, shrivel into a tiny ball, and enter a deep state of suspended animation that closely resembles death.

They shed almost all of the water in their body and their metabolism slows to 0.01% of the normal rate.

And if reintroduced to water decades later, they're able to reanimate.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-49265125
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W've colonised the moon

[Niamh.]

Oh I saw a a documentary on those before, creepy looking ****ers though