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s1artibartfast 10 months ago

Colision with a planet or moon would do it, anything that turns the surface to lava really.

sebzim4500 10 months ago | parent | next [-]

Even then there's a chance a few tardigrades hibernate on some material that shoots up and then comes back a few years later once the earth has cooled a bit.

LeifCarrotson 10 months ago | parent | next [-]

I propose we do this intentionally - put a few tardigrades and some other extremophiles in a rad-shielded container inside a fully-passive reentry vehicle and throw it up into a graveyard orbit for a couple million years. Cheap insurance for life on earth!

pfdietz 10 months ago | parent | prev [-]

I think they could be cooked by thermal radiation as the ejecta expands.

sebzim4500 10 months ago | parent | next [-]

Probably most would be, but there are a lot of microorganisms and only a few need to get lucky.

blooalien 10 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Tardigrades were placed in the "extremophile" class with good reason. If anything could survive a truly catastrophic impact event, I'd say the smart money goes on the lowly "water bear" to win. :)

Keysh 10 months ago | parent [-]

Tardigrades are not "extremophiles", which refers to organisms that live (grow, reproduce) in "extreme" environments ("phile" = "like, love"). Tardigrades can temporarily survive some rather extreme conditions, but they generally require fairly ordinary environments to actually live. (As suggested by common names like "water bear" and "moss piglet".)

dekhn 10 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Deep-earth chemoautotrophs might survive that. But ultimately, if the deep subsurface exceeds 150C, it would be hard to survive.

fecal_henge 10 months ago | parent [-]

Intollerable stuffyness.