Exact type of lifeform that could live on brutal Mars surface revealed – even surviving deadly radiation bombardment
A TOUGH lifeform could survive the brutal conditions of Mars.
That's the verdict from scientists who spent five hours blasting it with a year's worth of Martian radiation.
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Mars is a brutal wasteland that is bombarded with dangerous radiation
Credit: Nasa
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Humans would need significant protection to survive on the red planet's surface
Credit: Nasa
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Scientists tested whether two forms of lichen – Cetraria aculeata and Diploschistes muscorum – could survive on Mars
Credit: IMA Fungus
Lichens are common on Earth, and is known for being hardy.
And scientists now think that lichens could survive the ionising radiation that life experiences on Mars.
This kind of
But
Read more on space discoveries
Lichens are a strange "symbiotic" relationship between fungus and algae (or cyanobacteria).
Scientists were able to show that this lichen relationship remained "metabolically active" even with exposed to Mars-like atmospheric conditions.
That included being in darkness, and high X-ray radiation levels.
They tested two species of lichen: Diploschistes muscorum and Cetraria aculeata.
Most read in Science
And they found that the former was cabale or surviving those brutal conditions – giving hope for the survival of an alien off-Earth lichen colony.
"Our study is the first to demonstrate that the metabolism of the fungal partner in lichen symbiosis remained active while being in an environment resembling the surface of Mars," said Kaja Skubała, of Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, who led the research.
Astronomer reacts to James Webb Space Telescope image of distant galaxies
"We found that Diploschistes muscorum was able to carry out metabolic processes and activate defence mechanisms effectively.
"These findings expand our understanding of biological processes under simulated Martian conditions.
"And reveal how hydrated organisms respond to ionising radiation – one of the most critical challenges for survival and habitability on Mars.
"Ultimately, this research deepens our knowledge of lichen adaptation and their potential for colonising extraterrestrial environments."
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Sadly, this doesn't mean scientists have found – or will ever find – lichen already living on Mars.
But it means that an alien colony of lichen could potentially survive Mars' harsh conditions.
HUNTING FOR E.T.
It comes in the same month as scientists revealing they're almost certain they've spotted a
Top astronomers at the University of Cambridge told The Sun they are 99.7% confident they've spotted the best-ever signal of biological activity on
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This is what the ocean world of K2-18b might look like first-hand
Credit: Amanda Smith
And they revealed that the best scenario that explains the discovery is that the planet is "teeming with life".
The alien world is 120 lightyears away, and about 2.5x the size of Earth.
Astronomers spotted a molecule called DMS in the planet's atmosphere.
Here on Earth, DMS is produced by the tiny algae that live in the ocean.
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These microscopic phytoplankton can't be seen with the human eye individually, but show up as coloured patches on water.
Similar – but alien – lifeforms might be responsible for the DMS detected with extreme confidence on K2-18b.
Lead scientist Professor Nikku Madhusudhan said 'there is no mechanism in the literature that can explain what we are seeing without life'.
He told The Sun: 'It's a question humanity has been asking for thousands of years. It's a shock to the system. It takes time to recover from the enormity of it.'
WHAT IS A HYCEAN WORLD? THE STORY OF K2-18b SO FAR
Here's what you need to know...
A Hycean world is a type of exoplanet – or planet outside of our solar system.
Specifically, it's a planet that has both a liquid water ocean and a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
That's where the name comes from: Hycean is 'hydrogen' and 'ocean' combined.
It was coined as a term in 2021 by astronomers at the University of Cambridge.
Scientists think they're a top location to hunt for alien life.
They expect life on Hycean worlds to be aquatic – that means no land mammals like here on Earth.
One of the best candidates for life is K2-18b, because it appears to have both a Hycean atmosphere and biosignatures, or signs of life.
The planet is 120 lightyears away from Earth, orbiting the red dwarf start K2-18.
It's about 2.6 times bigger than Earth and has a 33-day orbit.
K2-18b gets about the same amount of sunlight from its star as Earth receives from the Sun.
It was first discovered in 2015, and water vapour was found in the atmosphere in 2019.
Then in 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope picked up carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.
Scientists later predicted that we might find potential biosignatures linked to life in the water ocean they believe to be on the planet.
And in April 2025, scientists were finally able to say with 99.7% certainty the presence of a biosignature: a type of molecule called DMS, which is produced by marine phytoplankton here on Earth.
It might mean that similar lifeforms exist on K2-18b too.
Picture Credit: Nasa
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The Irish Sun
17 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Distant moon could have aliens on it – and experts just spotted a ‘mysterious motion' in its atmosphere
A DISTANT moon in our solar system might mirror Earth's seasons, according to scientists, who also believe it could be a candidate for finding nearby alien life. And scientists just spotted a mysterious motion in its atmosphere. 6 Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a significant atmosphere, making it a top candidate for exploration Credit: NASA / ESA / IPGP / Labex UnivEarthS / University Paris Diderot illustration It even has an ocean hiding beneath its surface. Some 746million miles (1.2billion kilometers) away from Earth, the distant moon is thought to have rain clouds just like Earth. Unlike seasons on Earth, Titan has a much longer seasonal cycle, with each year on the moon lasting nearly three decades on our planet. READ MORE ON SPACE Despite its brutally cold temperatures, which average around -179C (-290F), this strange, alien world appears to have the organic ingredients for life. Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a significant atmosphere, making it a top candidate for exploration. Nasa's $3.35billion (£2.48billion) The mission just passed its critical design review - meaning engineers can begin building the helicopter-like robot ahead of its scheduled launch in July 2028. Most read in Science Dragonfly, which was officially selected as a viable mission in 2019, is expected to reach Titan sometime in 2034. 6 Nasa's $3.35billion (£2.48billion) Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon is set to explore the possibility of past or present water-based life Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben 6 Dragonfly, which was officially selected as a viable mission in 2019, is expected to reach Titan sometime in 2034 Credit: Johns Hopkins APL 'Strange' motion In late May, researchers found that Titan's hazy atmosphere wobbles like a gyroscope in line with its seasons, as opposed to spinning in line with its surface. The "strange" motion was detected following analysis of archival infrared data gathered by Cassini probe. "The behavior of Titan's atmospheric tilt is very strange," Dr. Lucy Wright, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, said at the time. "Titan's atmosphere appears to be acting like a gyroscope, stabilising itself in space. "We think some event in the past may have knocked the atmosphere off its spin axis, causing it to wobble. "Even more intriguingly, we've found that the size of this tilt changes with Titan's seasons." 6 In late May, researchers found that Titan's hazy atmosphere wobbles like a gyroscope in line with its seasons, as opposed to spinning in line with its surface Credit: SWNS But understanding how the atmosphere wobbles with the seasons is crucial for calculating the landing trajectory of Dragonfly. The rotorcraft will be carried by Titan's fast-moving winds as it descends through the atmosphere. Winds on Titan's upper atmosphere can be tempestuous, with speeds reaching up to 270mph (430kmph). Near the surface, however, the winds are much weaker. The tilt of the planet affects how Dragonfly's payload - a suite of scientific instruments designed to search for alien life - will be carried through the air. So research into the atmospheric motion can help engineers better predict where Dragonfly will touch down on the lunar surface. 6 A 3D illustration of the hydrocarbon lakes on Titan Credit: Getty 6 Saturn's moon Titan could harbor life, but only a tiny amount, a new study found Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Food for thought There appears to be plenty of organic material on Titan to support alien lifeforms, according to a Its lakes and its subsurface ocean believed to be 300miles deep, is thought to be filled with cold, oily methane and ethane - which is organic material. "There has been this sense that because Titan has such abundant organics, there is no shortage of food sources that could sustain life," Antonin Affholder, of the University of Arizona and lead author of the paper, said in a statement. The world exceeds even Earth's oil reserves. However, scientists remain skeptical, and while Titan could harbour life, it's likely only to be a small amount. "We point out that not all of these organic molecules may constitute food sources, the ocean is really big," added Affholder. "And there's limited exchange between the ocean and the surface, where all those organics are, so we argue for a more nuanced approach." All you need to know about planets in our solar system Our solar system is made up of nine planets with Earth the third closest to the Sun. But each planet has its own quirks, so find out more about them all... How old is How many moons does What colour is How far away is How big is How many moons does Does How many moons does How big is How hot is the
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid: An imperfect addition to the lesbians-in-space genre
Atmosphere Author : Taylor Jenkins Reid ISBN-13 : 978-1529152975 Publisher : Hutchinson Heinemann Guideline Price : £20 It's been a good year for lesbians in space. First, the Australian animated film Lesbian Space Princess made its world premiere at the 2025 Berlinale. Now, Taylor Jenkins Reid's ninth novel depicts a – literally – cosmic disaster steered by lesbian astronauts. Set in the early 1980s, Atmosphere follows Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford, two fictional women joining Nasa not long after the first American woman on the moon, Sally Ride. As Joan fulfils her dream of training at Houston's Johnson Space Centre, a wave of gay realisation hits her hard and fast. Just as her early infatuation begins to raise questions about how to live with a same-sex partner in a viciously homophobic world – 'You do realise bringing a woman as your date will make you look like a … you know …" – a 1984 mission threatens to take an apocalyptic turn. There's much talk these days about the screenplayification of novels, the claim that writers are replacing interiority with action and dialogue in a bid to get lucratively optioned. Less discussed is the increasingly default presence of cinematically non-linear narratives. What was once an experiment has become the done thing: 1. opening teaser as close to the end as possible, 2. cut to much earlier in the story, 3. interweave the pursuit of both threads until they join definitively at the end. Atmosphere follows this formula. READ MORE I doubt it would bother the author to have this pointed out. In her recent cover interview with Time, Jenkins Reid shot back at critics who assumed she'd ever been trying to write literary fiction: '[M]aybe I love being Candy Land [Jonathan] Franzen.' The novel's feminism operates at a similar emotional temperature: friendly, with a tendency to flatter the 21st-century reader's existing sensibilities She's not a stylist, and that's fine. Franzen can write Franzen's books. Jenkins Reid's job is to write her own. Her sentences convey character, setting and plot without drawing attention to themselves. Unhindered by the road bump of experimental prose, a casual reader might breeze past the insight often packed into short strings of words. But dialogue like this will seep into you if you let it: 'Have you ever been in love?' 'No, I don't think so.' 'Well, it's like a bad cold: it's miserable and then, one day, it's gone.' The humour is gentle rather than uproarious. Only once did I laugh aloud: '… Hank was the recipient of a very large trust fund. It was a fact that Hank wore with complexity." But there are moments that will elicit a soft smile, as when none of Joan's male colleagues make Nasa's final selection: 'No men from our group, huh?' 'No […] I am afraid they were not up to snuff." [ Taylor Jenkins Reid: 'Marriages are messy. Our lives are messy. Convenient truths don't exist' Opens in new window ] The novel's feminism operates at a similar emotional temperature: friendly, with a tendency to flatter the 21st-century reader's existing sensibilities, rather than to prompt any startling self-interrogation. 'Don't thank me for doing the bare minimum,' a male astronaut tells Joan. 'It does a disservice to us both.' I don't disagree. Does anyone reading this? One could reasonably rejoin that Jenkins Reid had never been trying to prompt any ideological awakening. The greater issue is how present-day online the phrase is. 'The bare minimum' has been kicking around the English language for ages, of course, but its application to men being called feminist pioneers for acts of ordinary decency is distractingly contemporary. 'Thank you for your excellent notes on how I can be scared in a less vulnerable way,' Joan says. 'Did she fumble?' she wonders. She's several decades too early for 'vulnerable' to readily signify performatively confessional femininity, and back in the innocent 1980s the verb 'to fumble' still needed an object. The scattering of these moments is too uneven for it to read as an intentional gesture to modern readers. When the language does embody the context, it's thrilling. Here's a liaison with ground control: 'We are go.' 'Guidance?' 'Go.' 'FIDO?', and on for another 20 lines. I had only the vaguest clue what was happening and I loved it; the texture and energy mattered more than the exact meaning. [ Daisy Jones & the Six: Everyone looks perpetually glamorous, but it's a soulless jingle Opens in new window ] I imagine it will divide gay readers that the HIV epidemic is mentioned only once. 'At that very moment, people all over the country were convinced that Aids was a punishment for moral failing,' muses the narrator in autumn 1983. Two paragraphs later, Joan has returned to wishing she could get married. There is little sense of a broader queer community for the astronauts. Their romance takes place in an intergalactic vacuum – or a near-vacuum, to deploy the scientific precision that Joan would want – while gay people at home die en masse. Some will hate this. Others will respond that we already have enough books on the trauma of those years. Even readers who find the intimacy myopic will, I think, be moved by it at the same time: 'Joan had had no idea how quickly you could learn another's body. How swiftly their legs become your legs, their arms your arms.' May the lesbian space genre continue to boom. This book is an imperfect addition, but one that floats. Naoise Dolan's latest novel is The Happy Couple
Irish Post
2 days ago
- Irish Post
Canadian wildfire smoke seen in Ireland and across Northern Europe
SMOKE from wildfires burning in central Canada has drifted thousands of miles across the Atlantic, arriving in Ireland and other parts of northwestern Europe, according to European climate researchers. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), an environmental agency under the European Union's Earth observation programme, has been tracking the movement of wildfire smoke since the start of May. Using satellite data, CAMS confirmed that a large plume originating from the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario reached Ireland on Sunday, June 1. Additional plumes are expected to spread further into Europe later this week. 'Wildfires are a frequent occurrence in boreal forests from spring through summer,' said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at CAMS. 'But the intensity of fires we've seen in Canada this year, particularly in central regions, is extraordinary.' CAMS analysis shows that while the smoke has visibly affected the sky, producing hazy skies and vibrant sunsets, the smoke is travelling at high altitudes, meaning they won't have a major effect on air quality in Europe. However, elsewhere the fires have already caused a lot of damage. More than 25,000 people in Canada have been forced to evacuate, prompting officials in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba to declare month-long states of emergency. U.S. states near the Canadian border have also experienced low air quality as the smoke drifts south. The fires are part of what experts warn could become an intense wildfire season in Canada, exacerbated by ongoing drought, that's also affecting northern Europe. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service has facilities across all of Europe (Photo by CAMS) Similar wildfires are happening across Russia's Far Eastern Federal District, in the regions of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai near the borders with China and Mongolia. According to CAMS, carbon emissions from fires in that area have reached their highest levels for this time of year since 2018. Smoke from those Russian blazes has been detected as far away as northeastern China, northern Japan and even the Arctic. While current forecasts suggest only minor health risks from the smoke in Europe, Parrington claimed that the increasing reach of these wildfires add to growing concerns about the long-term effects of climate change and global air quality. Going into further detail Parrington said, "The fact that we can notice the impacts of the smoke in European skies is a reflection of the devastation of wildfires which have been burning in Canada, indicating the increased number of fires, intensity, and duration. A lot of smoke has to be generated in order for it to travel so far and be noticeable and shows how people on either side of the Atlantic are connected via the atmosphere." As we come up to the drier summer months, monitoring agencies like CAMS will continue to track these plumes across Ireland and northern Europe. See More: CAMS, Canada, Mark Parrington, Wilfire
