PLANKTON found in space: Sea creatures are discovered living on the exterior of the ISS

Perhaps ocean water was blown into space, or at least as high as the orbital altitudes plus. Extinction meteor impacts.

Again, I think its just poorly worded.
Note:

They claim the plankton were not carried there at launch – but are thought to have been blown there by air currents on Earth.

If they meant that air was getting to the station from the earth, it would have said “from earth” not “on earth”. I believe that they mean its contaminates from pre-launch. If anyone has even been near the ocean, you know that all the salt air is everywhere and impossible to filter out. As the cape, and the “high bay” where the station parts are packaged for delivery to orbit, is right on the Atlantic ocean, the sea air is carrying the plankton onto the parts before launch.

Could an explosion in a seawater cooled nuclear reactor send plankton into low earth orbit?

Would that irradiated plankton mutate in reproduction?

Sorry, but this is tantamount to this:

*looks at the astronauts in space*
"OMG life in space!!!!"

Nothing to see here, move along.

Fantastic find. Maybe a hurricane? I've read before that maybe comets could harbor life that could seed planets. Also remember reading that life could be possible on Venus at certain altitudes. So maybe this could be carried by the solar wind from Venus to Earth?

PLANKTON found in space: Sea creatures are discovered living on the exterior of the ISS

If this is true.

Then it stands to reason somewhere out there is more life than what people think.

Some even recognizable to us.

Hell the odds are somewhere out there even a 'mankind' exists or two or LOTS.

Since 'we came from the sea'.

originally posted by: Drunkenparrot
From the Daily Mail article...

Experts claim that the plankton were not carried there at launch, because they are marine microorganisms not indigenous to the blast-off site in Kazakhstan – but are thought to have been blown there by air currents on Earth.

Sea plankton were not carried by the craft as they aren't native to Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where the Russian modules of the station blasted off

It seems somebody is forgetting the 30+ missions the Space Shuttle flew to assemble/resupply the ISS and that all of the shuttle launches took place on the coast....

I think they were saying that because the plankton was found "on the Russian segment of the ISS "
I didn't know it was divided up like that. Wonder if they have checked other windows.

Not one legitimate space science site is carrying this story. You won't find it on Space.com, Universe Today, Astrobiology Magazine or The Planetary Society's website.

So if none of the sites which routinely report on stories about astrobiology and extremophiles aren't running it, there is probably nothing to this.

Like I said, until it is published somewhere other than dubious UK tabloids I wouldn't get too excited.

Maybe the cleaning rag was contaminated with plankton here on earth before it was shipped to the ISS?
But If true this doesn`t surprise me, living creatures have a truly amazing ability to adapt.

originally posted by: Tardacus
Maybe the cleaning rag was contaminated with plankton here on earth before it was shipped to the ISS?

If the story is true (which is in doubt) then this would be the first thing to rule out. I've seen nothing in the report that states that they took steps to see about this possibility. Did they test the cleaning rags which weren't used? Did they test the cleaning fluid?

Other things about the story seem odd as well. Keep an eye on it.

But If true this doesn`t surprise me, living creatures have a truly amazing ability to adapt.

Over millions of years yes.

The environment outside the ISS is so unlike anything plankton would encounter its pretty ridiculous to think they would just go on living. Some forms of bacteria an but they're talking about plankton, a much more complex and specialized organism.

This is even more dubious than the stories about "Faster than light neutrinos" which turned out to be due to error a few years ago.

originally posted by: neo96
If this is true.

Then it stands to reason somewhere out there is more life than what people think.

Even if this is false, which it probably is, your statement is still true. There is very good reason to suspect thee is more life out there than what most people think.

This has been done before on purpose. They left microbes on the outside of the ISS for over a year, and they survived.

phys.org...

originally posted by: loam

In the end, I think we will eventually find that life in the universe is the rule, not the exception.

I think so, too. Life is incredibly persistent. I bet it shows up on some of the moons in our solar system.

a reply to: defcon5

This is true, although I believe the plankton are still alive. I guess it would be weird if there were lots of plankton in space, floating around. I don't think it detracts from the story, at least, to have them get on there pre-launch. That's what I had been assuming.

Plankton floating around in space all over the place is another thing, entirely... although the wording leaves room to think that is what they meant.

Evidence for Extraterrestrial Extremophiles and Plasmas in the Thermosphere

As depicted in NASA space shuttle film footage compiled and published by this author (Joseph 2012a,b), anomalous objects resembling and behaving similar to single cell and simple multi-cellular organisms have been observed and filmed by 10 separate NASA space shuttle missions, over 200 miles above Earth within the thermosphere. These structures appear to be self-illuminated, may be several meters or kilometers in size, and have 4 distinct morphologies: 1) sperm shaped, 2) cloud shaped, 3), “donut” shaped, 4) Cone shaped. Some of these structures travel at different speeds, travel in different directions, and change their speed and direction of movement and angle toward the camera, will turn and interact with one another, and in some instances will turn 180 degrees and follow other structures.

originally posted by: loam
In the end, I think we will eventually find that life in the universe is the rule, not the exception.

Star and flag for that alone. Great thread.

a reply to: neo96

But we didn't come from the sea, or from the earth.

Is it possible they were never from Earth and live in space, have all along?
I'm struggling to understand how winds blow that far from our planet.

What surprise me is the lack of consecuence of radiations...

This discovery open a mindblowing horizon about life in our solar system... and on other planets and moons.

S&F.

Pan Spermia,.....of thee I sing....!
Of course theres been myriad reports of creature like UFOs from way back.....but the proof is nice to have.....