Science and Interesting Facts Blog: Cosmonaut says space station bacteria 'come from outer space'

Cosmonaut says space station bacteria 'come from outer space'

The sun appears over the horizon of the Earth, greeting the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
NASA
A Russian cosmonaut claims to have caught aliens. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov says he found bacteria clinging to the external surface of the International Space Station that didn't come from the surface of Earth.

Shkaplerov told the Russian news agency Tass that cosmonauts collected the bacteria by swabbing the outside of the space station during space walks years ago.

"And now it turns out that somehow these swabs reveal bacteria that were absent during the launch of the ISS module," Shkaplerov told Tass. "That is, they have come from outer space and settled along the external surface. They are being studied so far and it seems that they pose no danger."

The cosmonaut is preparing for his third trip to the space station next month. The collection of life forms from the outside of the ISS during one of his previous trips was something of a mini controversy a few years back. Russian scientists reported that spacewalk sample harvests yielded evidence of apparent sea plankton clinging to the station. The claims caught NASA by surprise at the time, which said it had heard nothing from the Russians about any space plankton. https://www.cnet.com/news/alien-life-international-space-station-bacteria-nasa-space-walk/