Scientists squished microbes into a steel 'sandwich' — and made a profound discovery about life in space

An illustration of two asteroids colliding in space. They create a glowing ball of energy, illuminating other debris around them in a dark space background.

"Extremophile" bacteria could survive asteroid impacts strong enough to launch them into space, a new lab experiment shows — hinting that these space-rock crashes could spread any potential alien life between worlds.

In the new study, published March 3 in the journal PNAS Nexus, researchers sandwiched Deinococcus radiodurans, a type of bacteria that has been shown to survive in space for years, between two steel plates. Then, they squished the "sandwich" very hard and fast to simulate asteroids slamming into a planet, and measured how many of the microbes survived.