Microbes have just pulled off a feat that sounds like science fiction, stripping valuable metals from a meteorite fragment while floating in weightlessness. In a carefully controlled experiment on the International Space Station, researchers watched as these microscopic miners dissolved extraterrestrial rock and concentrated rare elements that are vital for modern technology. The result hints at a future in which spacecraft and off‑world bases rely on biological refineries instead of heavy industrial machinery.
The demonstration goes beyond a clever lab trick. It shows that living systems can run complex chemical processes in orbit, using little more than water, nutrients and time to unlock resources that are scarce on Earth but common in asteroids. Scaled up, the same approach could help power deep‑space missions, build infrastructure on the Moon and Mars, and ease pressure on terrestrial mines that supply rare earth elements and platinum‑group metals.
How zero‑gravity biomining actually worked
The core finding is stark: Microbes can extract from meteorites in microgravity, using chemistry that is already familiar from terrestrial biomining. In orbit, the organisms were supplied with tiny meteorite samples and a nutrient solution, then left to form biofilms on the rock surface. These communities excreted acids and other compounds that attacked the mineral matrix, freeing elements that could be recovered from the surrounding liquid. The key twist was not the chemistry itself, but the fact that it worked in weightlessness, where fluids behave very differently and sediment does not settle.
The experiment builds on earlier work that tested whether biomining survives the strange physics of orbit. The European Space Agency, or ESA, previously flew the Biorock investigation to the International Space Station to see if microbes could leach rare earth elements from basalt under different simulated gravity levels. That study, later described in Nature Communications results by Cockell, Santomartino, Finster and colleagues, found that the microbes kept pulling metals from rock regardless of whether they were in microgravity, simulated Mars gravity or an Earth‑like control. A related analysis of the 2019 BioRock run on the International Space Station noted that a key question was how microgravity would influence biofilm growth, and the answer was that these communities proved surprisingly stable.
Researchers then pushed further, swapping out simulated regolith for true extraterrestrial material. In the latest meteorite study, microbes harvested metals aboard the station and were directly compared with identical cultures on the ground. For many elements, nonbiological leaching, in which a sterile solution was used to pull out metals, was less effective than the living cultures, and the microbes had consistent results in both settings. Another report on the same campaign notes that microbes extract metals samples in orbit and that the approach could generally increase its impact as techniques improve.
From BioAsteroid to self‑sufficient space industry
To understand why this matters for the next phase of exploration, I look at a related set of trials that treated asteroid‑like material as a test bed for industrial biology. The BioAsteroid experiment, performed onboard the International Space Station, exposed crushed asteroidal simulant to both bacteria and fungi to see how efficiently they could free up metals. The fungi used in BioAsteroid were described as aggressive dissolvers of rock, producing lots of acid and weaving mycelial networks across the surface, a behavior that directly enhances leaching. A separate overview of the same project stresses that expanding human space will require self‑sustainable acquisition of local resources, and that biomining is one pathway to metals, nutrients and even compounds of pharmaceutical interest that may be enhanced in microgravity.
Other groups have focused on how gravity levels shape the physics around these microbes. On the ISS, those bacteria in the Biorock hardware were exposed to different gravity simulations, including microgravity, Mars gravity and Earth gravity, as they interacted with basalt, according to one account of microbes extracting metals from space rocks. The formal write‑up in Nature Communications reported no significant difference in final yields between gravity conditions, which is exactly what engineers need to hear if they are planning refineries on Mars or in orbiting platforms. A separate summary of microbial behavior in space notes that Despite the harsh, microorganisms display remarkable resilience in oxygen‑deprived and irradiated conditions, revealing how life might persist beyond Earth and why these systems are attractive for long missions.
One of the most striking details from the meteorite run is that the fungus actually thrived in orbit. A report on the work notes that Even better, the ramped up its metabolism and pulled more palladium out of meteorite samples than it does on Earth, a result that hints at microgravity advantages for some bioprocesses. The same Cornell summary notes that for many elements, nonbiological leaching was less effective, reinforcing the idea that living systems bring something unique. Industrial biotechnology specialists have long pointed out that microorganisms excrete chemicals that dissolve minerals, allowing them to be recovered for construction, life support and manufacturing, all while reducing the need to transport heavy payloads from Earth.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
