A new hazard of space travel has recently been identified: cleanliness.
It seems that the International Space Station doesn’t have nearly enough germs in the environment, which is leading to health and skin issues for the station’s residents.
The lack of natural microbes from soil and plants on Earth are absent from the ISS’ environment.
Additionally, the challenges of space life—no access to laundry facilities or traditional showers—also seem to contribute to the ailments experienced by astronauts.
Surface swabs taken by astronauts aboard the ISS were sent back to the surface, where they were analyzed in a laboratory. The results of that study were published last month in the journal Cell in an article titled “The International Space Station has a unique and extreme microbial and chemical environment driven by use patterns.”
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t normally read scientific papers for fun. But the topic caught my attention, so I skimmed through the summary paragraph before diving in and reading the rest of the article.
This article may pique your interest if you are interested in life beyond our planet’s surface, even if the findings contain a lot of techno-speak.
Featured photo: By NASA – https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/51749924967/in/photostream/; see also https://images.nasa.gov/details-jsc2021e064215_alt, Public Domain, Link
