Strange spot seen on Sun is not tardigrade, scientist confirms

The Solar Orbiter took photos never before seen by researchers

A black speck on pictures sent back from a mission to the Sun has led some to believe that a tardigrade had been seen on the surface of the flaming giant.

Tardigrades are microscopic organisms that can live for up to 30 years without food or water and endure temperatures of up to 150 degrees.

It is possible that these creatures are already on the Moon, having been transported there on a crashed satellite.

Pictures captured by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft showed what appeared to be the tiny beast. The Solar Orbiter also revealed “campfires”, tiny solar flares all over the outermost atmosphere of the sun, and images of the magnetic field at the back of the sun that have never been seen before.

At the press conference about the images David Berghmans, principal investigator for the Solar Orbiter and Head of Scientific Service Solar Influences Data Analysis Center at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, said researchers spotted the shape “crawling” over some of the images.

It was referred to as “a little tardigrade” and “our extra biology experiment.”

“But in fact, it's a sensor defect,” he said, as reported by Live Science. “In future processing when we further optimise this, this will be cleaned up and interpolated from nearby pixels. But for the moment, it's still clearly visible.”

Although tardigrades are resilient creatures, they would not be able to survive on the sun, where temperatures can reach over 5,000 degrees Celcius.

As for alien life, it is more likely that it could be occurring in more environments than previously realised, but the moons Enceladus and Europa have been singled out as potential targets in the search for alien life.

This is because of the deep oceans which cover their service, which researchers suggest satisfies all the requirements for life.