The Tardigrade family appears. They were discovered in 1773 by the pastor Johann August Ephraim Goeze. Over 1,150 species have since been discovered. They are microscopic animals with segmented bodies and eight legs. They are extremophiles: they can live in extreme environmental conditions, such as temperatures just above absolute zero (0K) or much higher than the boiling point of water, pressures from zero to several times the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, doses of ionizing radiation several times greater than those that would kill a human, and they can survive the vacuum of space. They can go without food for more than 10 years and become dehydrated at up to 3% of their water content. They are 0.5 mm long when adult. And they are a species that dates back 530 million years. They are found everywhere, from the Himalayas to the ocean trenches, and there are 25,000 of them per liter of water. Earth is the planet of the Tardigrades…
