留在月球上的生物

留在月球上的生物

You've heard of men on the moon -- but what about moss piglets?

你听说过人类登上月球——但是苔藓小猪呢?

Thousands of tardigrades -- also known as "water bears" or "moss piglets" -- were on board the Beresheet spacecraft when it crash landed on the moon in April.

今年4月，“贝雷赛特”号宇宙飞船在月球着陆时，数千只缓步动物——也被称为“水熊”或“苔藓小猪”——都在飞船上。

The tiny creatures are incredibly hardy and can survive extremely low temperatures and harsh conditions-- and The Arch Mission Foundation, which sent them into space, believes some may have survived.

这种微小的生物非常耐寒，能够在极低的温度和恶劣的条件下生存。将它们送入太空的Arch任务基金会认为，其中一些可能已经存活了下来。

Tardigrades are pudgy little animals no longer than one millimeter. They live in water or in the film of water on plants like lichen or moss, and can be found all over the world in some of the most extreme environments, from icy mountains and polar regions to the balmy equator and the depths of the sea.

缓步动物是一种矮胖的小动物，体长不超过一毫米。它们生活在水中或地衣或苔藓等植物的水膜中，在世界各地一些最极端的环境中都能找到它们，从冰冷的山脉和极地地区到温暖的赤道和海洋深处。

In an attempt to create a "Noah's ark" or a "back-up" for the Earth, non-profit organization The Arch Mission sent a lunar library -- a stack of DVD-sized disks that acts as an archive of 30 million pages of information about the planet -- to the moon. Along with the library, Arch Mission sent human DNA samples and a payload of tardigrades, which had been dehydrated, into space.

为了给地球创造一个“诺亚方舟”或“后备”，非营利组织Arch Mission向月球发送了一个月球图书馆——一堆dvd大小的磁盘，相当于一个包含3000万页地球信息的档案库。随着图书馆的建立，Arch任务将人类DNA样本和一组已经脱水的缓步动物送入太空。

"We chose them because they are special. They are the toughest form of life we know of. They can survive practically any planetary cataclysm. They can survive in the vacuum of space, they can survive radiation," Nova Spivack, co-founder of the Arch Mission Foundation, told CNN.

“我们选择它们是因为它们很特别。它们是我们所知道的最艰难的生命形式。它们几乎可以在任何行星灾难中幸存。他们可以在太空的真空中生存，他们可以在辐射中生存，”Arch任务基金会的联合创始人Nova Spivack告诉CNN。

Tardigrades have eight legs with claws at the end, a brain and central nervous system, and a sucker-like pharynx behind their mouth, which can pierce food.

缓步动物有八条腿，末端有爪子，一个大脑和中枢神经系统，嘴巴后面有一个像吮吸器一样的咽，可以刺穿食物。

The Arch Mission put the creatures into a state of "suspended animation," where the body dries out and the metabolism slows to as little as 0.01% of its normal rate.

Arch的任务让这些生物进入“假死”状态，在这种状态下，身体会变干，新陈代谢速度会减慢到正常速度的0.01%。

The Arch Mission also sent a 30 million-page library along for the ride.

Arch的使命还为这次旅程提供了一个3000万页的图书馆。

"In that state you can later rehydrate them in a laboratory and they will wake up and be alive again," Spivack explained.

斯皮瓦克解释说:“在这种状态下，你可以在实验室里给它们补水，然后它们就会醒过来，重新活过来。”

Although the animals won't be able to reproduce or move around in their dehydrated state -- if they have survived the crash -- if rehydrated they could come back to life years later.

尽管这些动物无法在脱水状态下繁殖或活动——如果它们在冲击事故中幸存下来——但如果重新补水，它们可以在数年后复活。

"We don't often get a chance to land life on the moon that we decided to seize the day and send some along for the ride," Spivack added.

斯皮瓦克补充说:“我们很少有机会将生命降落在月球上，所以我们决定抓紧时间，送一些生命到月球上去。”