A new super-microbe was discovered that can survive with almost no sustenance.
The bacteria was discovered in a space craft "clean room," which one of the lowest microbe count of any Earthly environment, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory news release reported.
Researchers take frequent surveys of these rooms to see what bacteria might get a lift into space, which would allow them to pick out any alien life forms that hitched a ride back to Earth.
The surveys can also pinpoint what bacteria can survive "drying, chemical cleaning, ultraviolet treatments and lack of nutrients." These bacteria could have the ability to survive even the most rigorous of space craft cleaning.
"We want to have a better understanding of these bugs, because the capabilities that adapt them for surviving in clean rooms might also let them survive on a spacecraft," microbiologist Parag Vaishampayan of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said. "This particular bug survives with almost no nutrients."
The newly discovered berry-shaped bacteria is so unique it has surpassed simply being classified as a new species, and is instead categorized in a brand new genus. Scientists dubbed it Tersicoccus phoenicis, essentially meaning "clean berry."
There are other bacteria species that have been found only in a clean room, but the Tersicoccus was special because it was found in two separate equally sterile environments.
The two clean rooms where the Tersicoccus was discovered are located 2,500 miles apart, one in Florida and the other in South America.
Researchers looked at a global bacterial DNA database to see if the bacteria had been spotted anywhere else in the world; the data proved it had not.
Many of the researchers were not surprised by this revelation.
"We find a lot of bugs in clean rooms because we are looking so hard to find them there. The same bug might be in the soil outside the clean room but we wouldn't necessarily identify it there because it would be hidden by the overwhelming numbers of other bugs," Vaishampayan said.
About 99 percent of all bacteria has never been cultivated or classified in a lab. The absence of other bacteria in the clean room could have caused Tersicoccus to stand out.
"Tersicoccus phoenicis might be found in some natural environment with extremely low nutrient levels, such as a cave or desert," Vaishampayan said.
