NASA: Some ‘Extreme Shrimp’ May Hold Clues To Alien Life

It’s hard to think of a tiny marine animal like a shrimp being extreme, but there is a type of shrimp living deep in the Caribbean sea that is so extreme that NASA says it holds clues to alien life forms.

The shrimp are called Rimicaris hybisae, and they live 7,500 feet underwater, clustered around rock chimneys and hydrothermal vents that spew water at a temperature around 750 degrees Fahrenheit, in complete darkness.

That is some pretty extreme shrimp.

The water around the vents does happen to be cooler, which allows the shrimp to live in it, using the nearby, extremely hot water to actually cook their dinner in. The shrimp feed on carbohydrates that are a byproduct of the bacteria that live inside the vents.

So what do these so-called extreme shrimp that can live in water that is boiling hot have to do with space aliens?

According to NASA, it’s the bacteria that the shrimp live off of that provides scientists with insight. The 750 degree water that the bacteria thrive in indicates that life can be sustained in extreme environments, such as on Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon that also has a subsurface ocean.

“For two-thirds of the Earth’s history, life has existed only as microbial life,” said Max Coleman, senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “On Europa, the best chance for life would be microbial.”

So, if the shrimp are gorging themselves on the byproduct of the bacteria, what do the bacteria eat? The NASA website has the answer to that.

“The particular bacteria in the vents are able to survive in extreme environments because of chemosynthesis, a process that works in the absence of sunlight and involves organisms getting energy from chemical reactions. In this case, the bacteria use hydrogen sulfide, a chemical abundant at the vents, to make organic matter. The temperatures at the vents can climb up to a scorching 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius), but waters just an inch away are cool enough to support the shrimp. The shrimp are blind, but have thermal receptors in the backs of their heads.”

Blind shrimp, living 7,500 feet below the surface, gobbling bacteria an inch away from waters that reach upwards of 750 degrees Fahrenheit with thermal receptors in the back of their heads does sound pretty alien-like, even if it is the bacteria itself that provides the actual clues.

The idea of alien life has captivated the public for decades, and will probably continue to do so. For more on potential life on other planets, read about this alleged alien cover-up here. Or, you can stay on your own planet and see something so bizarre it appears alien by clicking here.

What do you think? Is there life — either intelligent or at the microscopic level — on other planets?