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Science Technology

Tiny Worms Survive Shuttle Crash 46

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the not-so-terminal-velocity dept.
John H. Doe writes "According to CNet, tiny worms kept in special aluminum canisters aboard the space shuttle Columbia (which broke apart in the atmosphere back in Feb. 1, 2003) survived their fall to earth. The small (about 1mm long) soil roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans was found alive in four or five of the recovered canisters, after an impact 2,295 times the force of Earth's gravity."
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Tiny Worms Survive Shuttle Crash More

Tiny Worms Survive Shuttle Crash

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  • sooo (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    now your saying we're descendent from a bunch of half-inch alien worms? scuttlemonkey i hate you
  • So that's how the aliens in 'War of the Worlds' managed their space flight!

  • Whuh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wwest4 ( 183559 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:12AM (#14390731)

    It shows directly that even complex small creatures originating on one planet could survive landing on another without the protection of a spacecraft."


    Do I even need to say why that is specious? Um, OK: They were in canisters and they rode in a shuttle for part of re-entry.

    I'm not saying panspermia's infeasible, but this event is not particularly compelling, given the circumstances.

    • Re:Whuh? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:25AM (#14390764)
      Eh, that claim is ok. They're not saying that the life forms could survive the journey through space... just a landing. They aren't even making claims that they could survive re-entry.

      Yes, however, if you take it as justification of theories regarding panspermia, you would need much more evidence to back other claims.
      • Yes, however, if you take it as justification of theories regarding panspermia, you would need much more evidence to back other claims.

        For me personally, the biggest single piece of evidence reqiured will be a demonstration of how microorganisims can escape the gravity of their "mother" planet in the first place.

        • Re:Whuh? (Score:3, Funny)

          by baadger ( 764884 )
          Maybe they could evolve on the rock they hit us with...i mean that hit's us?

          I for one welcome our new rock steering wormy overlords.
        • One plausible way (depending on a lot of factors like atmosphere, the size of the planet, etc) is that pieces of rock containing microorganisms could be ejected from the planet by a comet or asteroid impacting the surface. Another (more speculative) way would be that they could have hitchhiked on a spacecraft built by a more complex organism (as, in fact, Earth microrganisms have done in escaping Earth's gravity). The microbes could then make their way through space attached to something even if the organis

  • I could have sworn... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Drakin ( 415182 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:15AM (#14390741)
    Yeah, the story's been run before.

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/0 1/1134217&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160 [slashdot.org]
    • Galileo foresaw this 400 years ago, as I posted to soc.history.science [google.com] at the time:

      Galileo Galilei 1638: http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/tns 1.htm [virginia.edu]

      "...Who does not know that a horse falling from a height of three or four cubits will break his bones, while a dog falling from the same height or a cat from a height of eight or ten cubits will suffer no injury? Equally harmless would be the fall of a grasshopper from a tower or the fall of an ant from the distance of the moon..."

    • Yeah, the story's been run before.

      And so what?

      What about us who missed it the first time around? No-one complains that every TV station has a X o'clock news, X + 2 o'clock news and the X + 5 o'clock news, all showing the same stuff. Or even CNN and Fox News, 24 hours of mostly identical re-hashes of the same non-story.

      Is your reason for existence simply to dig through the /. archives in search of dupes?

  • This is rather old (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:17AM (#14390749)
    I hate to spoil the party, but this was news around April, 2003. This isn't really a source, but if you think about it, it's about as infallible as you can get. Behold, a Google Cache [64.233.161.104] of a weblog I wrote at that time, the server of which doesn't really exist anymore. It was back in the time of Chimera before it became Camino, back when RSS was cool. But of course don't take my word, I'm sure someone else can furnish a true news source to back this up...

  • Tiny Worms Survive Shuttle Crash! (Score:4, Funny)

    by cffrost ( 885375 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:44AM (#14390804) Homepage

    *Whew!* What a relief!

    That mission wasn't such a disaster afterall!

    • If the canisters survived the crash...why not make the entire shuttle out of canisters!

      Also, the black box survived so perhaps a shuttle made of the canisters INSIDE the material for the black box!

      Why hasn't anyone else thought of this...do I have to do everything around here?

  • So? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gellenburg ( 61212 ) <george@ellenburg.org> on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @05:56AM (#14390841) Homepage Journal
    It's not like worms have any bones to break, or complex brain structures that would suffer life-threatening subdural hematomas upon impact.

    Besides, the worms were packed in loose soil offering cushioning upon impact, and have very low oxygen requirements compared to humans.

    • > It's not like worms have any bones to break,

      Even if they did, they'd still survive the fall itself, just like humans do.
    • Agreed, and I guess not only soil cushioned the impact. If the canisters broke loose from the bulk of the section of spacecraft they were in, then they might have hit the ground at a lower speed (there's a velocity point where the G pull downwards equals the aerodynamic drag - "terminal velocity", so it will depend on mass and aerodynamics of the canister).

      If they hit the ground inside a big chunk of the spacecract, then the deformation of this chunk also absorved part of the impact.

      2,295 Gs of impact... I
      • 2,295 Gs of impact... I wonder where they got this number from.

        "Ignoring Air Resistance..."
      • Don't forget that objects can exceed terminal velocity and that terminal velocity changes with tumble, thus it is influenced by everything that influences THAT. Bullets actually leave the muzzle above terminal velocity... Or at least, some of 'em.
        • Terminal velocity relates to accelration due to gravity vs aerodynamic drag ... doesn't have much to do with bullets.
        • bullets are powered. Terminal velocity has to do with "falling" objects. An orbiting object is a falling object. It is in free fall after all. Now if you fired a bullet straight up it may reach terminal velocity on the way down. Tumble? That has to do with drag as the original poster said. However tumble will only decrease the velocity. Nothing will make an object fall faster than it's terminal velocity.
    • How much can a 1mm worm weigh?

      Way under .1g probably.
      Probably had a little fraction of an once of impact force. Not surprising to survive especially as there was probably cushioning not accounted for and 2295 sounds extremely high.....

  • Four or five? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pretor ( 2506 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @06:11AM (#14390881)
    Is it to much to ask of our researchers that they manage to count to at least 5?

    When they found the canisters did they count like a child? What comes first? One. And then? Two. And then? Three. And then? Four or five, I'm not sure.
    • That's easy: They couldn't get the fifth one open, so the worms in that one are neither alive nor dead, throwing off the count.
    • She's got a PhD, counting must be below her.

    • There is always a chance that there was firm evidence that there were live worms in four of the containers and strong evidence that there were live worms in the fifth container that died due to other causes after the landing. That would make the 'four or five' statement accurate.

      Then there is a chance that the reporter is getting the information second hand and the person being interviewed doesn't know the full details of the evidence. (i.e. You know that there were several canisters of worms surviving an

      • According to a more detailed article, there were six canisters with worms in them and five were recovered.

        I do find it interesting that the worms were 'four or five generations' removed from the originals. This could be where the confusion comes from.

        It would, unfortunately, be a typical mistake made by a reporter. I've seen far too many instances where the facts get mangled by someone who doesn't quite understand what they are talking about when they translate it for the masses.

  • ...was found alive in four or five of the recovered canisters...

    So which was it, hmm? Four or five?
  • Who haxor3d slashdot article submissions today?
  • Are a full 50% of the articles in the submission queue from trolls hoping to trick the editors into posting dupes or misleading article summaries? Or do the editors simply select those articles, for reasons that aren't clear to the rest of us?
    • Or do the editors simply select those articles, for reasons that aren't clear to the rest of us?

      The Slashdot Random Story Submission Selection System is above your petty indignations. It is completely unbiased, to any factor. And that includes quality!

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2006 @09:28AM (#14391498)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Seriously, this was my first thought reading this as well. Not only does that figure seem to completely ignore the likely terminal velocity of the canister, I'm betting it supposes an inelastic collision. I'm sorry, did the can of worms land on an extremely large plate of hardened titanium? No, it probably landed in dirt someplace...
  • Their small size probably saved, given that, due to their miniscule surface area, the decceleration would be applied fairly uniformly to the entire creature.
  • Last time I played Worms World party my worms died after falling about 3 inches! You're telling me these worms survived a fall from space? Now thats a cheat code.
    Get your gear to commemorate this great tragedy here https://secure.team17.com/ [team17.com]

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