Nearly indestructible creatures were shot out of a gun at 2,000 mph

Tardigrades can survive extreme environments such as the vacuum of space or a volcano, but what happens when they're shot of a gun.

Published
Updated
56 seconds read time

Tardigrades are microscopic creatures that are believed to be close to indestructible, as they can survive quite extreme environments.

Nearly indestructible creatures were shot out of a gun at 2,000 mph 01

Scientists have previously found tardigrades can survive in the vacuum of space, inside a volcano, and even in a lake one mile beneath the surface in the Antarctic. Tardigrades have also been frozen and returned back to normal functionality thirty years later. Now, a recent study that has been published in the journal Astrobiology has pushed the limits of tardigrades by finding out if they can survive being fired out of a gun.

The researchers put tardigrades in some canisters and fired them out of a high-speed gun at different speeds. After many tests, the researchers found that tardigrades could survive at the speed of 900 meters per second, but any faster than that resulted in the tardigrades turning into mush. According to Alejandra Traspas, an astrochemist at Queen Mary University in London, "They just mush".

Nearly indestructible creatures were shot out of a gun at 2,000 mph 02
Nearly indestructible creatures were shot out of a gun at 2,000 mph 03

To put these speeds into context, 2,000 mph means the tardigrades experienced 1.14 gigapascals of pressure on impact, or 40,000 people standing on your back at once. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Buy at Amazon

TAMMYFLYFLY Lifelike Sea Creature Tardigrade Water Bear Plush

TodayYesterday7 days ago30 days ago
$11.99$11.99$11.99
* Prices last scanned on 3/28/2024 at 10:30 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms. Instead of typical FPS, Jak holds a very special spot in his heart for RTS games.

Newsletter Subscription

Related Tags