Unidentified Bacterial Strain Discovered Inside China’s Space Station

In October 2022, China launched the final module of its orbiting space station. Since then, it hasn’t just been astronauts aboard Tiangong—an unusual and previously unknown microbe has also been occupying low Earth orbit. A group of scientists examined swabs collected from inside the Tiangong space station, revealing a form of bacteria not known to inhabit Earth. The discovery, published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, highlights the need to study the newly identified microbial strain to protect the health of the astronauts on board the Chinese space station. The previously unknown microbe, named Niallia tiangongensis after the space station where it was discovered, has proven especially resilient, surviving in the harsh conditions of microgravity. Tiangong’s Shenzhou-15 astronauts swabbed a cabin on the space station in May 2023 as part of a survey by the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Program. Follow-up studies of the swabs ... Read full article.