This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Perhaps you've heard the news by now. There is life on the moon.

Just so happens to be caused by an accident. Back in April, the Israeli aerospace company, Space I.L.

Was all set to land the first private spacecraft on the moon. But minutes before touchdown, the lunar lander crashed,

spilling its payload onto the moon's surface, which included those very hardy, tiny tardigrades.

Here to tell us about how we got there what the first water bears on the moon mean, and to give

us the rundown of other short subjects in science, science

journalist Eleanor Cummins. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much for having me. So how did we get

lunar invasion of tartagraids? Right. So as you said, back in April, Space IL accidentally crashed

their lander on the moon. Their main payload was human knowledge. They were bringing things like

books and Wikipedia pages,

but they also had this sort of surprise payload, these tardigrades. So as you may remember,

tardigrades are these really incredible micro animals. They have eight legs and segmented bodies,

and they seem to survive like literally anything. We found them at very low pressure, a very high pressure,

in extreme heat and extreme cold. They've even been to space before, and some of them lived.

So they're pretty incredible animals, and now they seem to be on the surface of the moon.

So the $64 question, could it be that these tardigrades are still alive or in hibernation somehow?

So the tardigrades were sent up dehydrated.

They have this ability to sort of shrible up and effectively turn into glass at a cellular level.

And so that's how they were delivered to the moon.

It is entirely possible that they are still alive. We've been

able to rehydrate tardigrades after years in a dehydrated state. So if anyone ever gets the

chance to do that, they may spring back to life. Wow. They're not going to bring them back,

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