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Moss Survives 9 Months in Space Vacuum

Moss Survives 9 Months in Space Vacuum

19 comments

·November 22, 2025
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r721

Better source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/nov/20/moss-spores-...

GeorgeWoff25

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r721

^ This account frequently comments in OP account's posts:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45992902

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45963351

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45953724

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45943338

UPD Archived comment: https://archive.is/tW6SZ

schrodinger

and vice versa: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45976597

hparadiz

I always wonder what would happen if you put a fully enclosed glass terrarium in space. How would it fair. Not big either. Grape fruit sized.

nine_k

Sphere's surface grows as radius squared, but volume grows as radius cubed. Hence a small terrarium will quickly freeze, and a huge terrarium will eventually fry. There is an optimal size for a terrarium, given its orbit, that keeps its internal temperature within the habitable range.

Also it would need many more plants than animals. I would rather go with an aquarium.

askvictor

Is there a 'just right' size that neither freezes nor fries?

thfuran

About Earth sized, I think. A bit bigger if the soil is low on hot isotopes.

tbrownaw

What does volume have to do with energy balance?

thfuran

Heat is transferred through the surface area and produced by the volume (assuming there's something going on in the system that's exothermic).

Mistletoe

If it was in the sun it would be incinerated and in the shade it would freeze right?

nine_k

The other side would radiate, losing the heat. Earth, being in a similar position, is neither incinerated nor refrigerated, though different sides of it can be hot or cold.

0_____0

Earth has the benefit of a thermal mass that's at least a couple times larger than your average terrarium.

ordu

So... Now we have a way to commit an act of biological terrorism on the whole Milky Way? Just get a hundred of tons of moss spores to space and accelerate them in all direction to spread them all over Milky Way. It is somehow a very satisfying thought. Maybe I'm a born terrorist deep down, and just didn't get the chance to become one?

lukan

My definition of terrorism was always more in the lines of destroying life, not spreading it. Life might be very rare, even possible that life only developed here .. then our job might be exactly this, find ways to spread life.

askvictor

It's pretty difficult to accelerate hundreds of tons (or even a lot less than that) of stuff out of the gravity well of the Sun. Let's start by terrorising things a bit closer to home (the moon, Mars)

Rooki

Is it 100% certain that's not how they got here in the first place?

esseph

Goldilocks theory is pretty interesting

hatmanstack

Once when sitting near a lady on chemo and seeing her withered arms I had a sudden urge to reach out and snap one like a twig. Weird and out of nowhere but oddly satisfying.