The microbe above is happier living on meteorites than on Earth.The microscopic organism—an archaea known as Metallosphaera sedula (seen as a cluster of tiny dots sitting in the middle of the meteoritic dust particle pictured above)—was originally found in 1989 living in Italy's hot acidic sulfur springs around Vesuvius. These so-called chemolithotrophs normally feed on iron and sulfur minerals in rocks and leave behind a residue of heavy metals. This makes them useful in mining operations as an environmentally friendly alternative to leaching the metals with toxic chemicals.To test these microbes’ "astrofermination" capability, the researchers gave them an energy drink made of powdered meteorite and recorded how much nickel they released in the jars. Future work will include testing the survivability of the microbes in a vacuum and with synthetic martian minerals...
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