Nuclear fallout fungus that survived Chernobyl and eats radiation could turn into cosmic ray shields for astronauts - SYFY WIRE

This is why a team of researchers is now studying how this mold—yes, mold—could be used as a shield that protects astronauts from radiation in space.

“There is also an indication that the organism can utilize certain forms of highly energetic ionizing and non-ionizing radiation as a metabolic support function, effectively allowing it to grow faster than normal, which probably have led to the fungus populating the radioactive sites.”.

That needs more investigation, but the how it metabolized gamma and X-rays in an ISS experiment could mean a positive outlook for upcoming missions to the Moon and Mars.

“While on Earth, most sources of radiation are gamma- and/or X-rays; radiation in space and on Mars (also known as GCR or galactic cosmic radiation) is of a completely different kind and involves highly energetic particles, mostly protons.

Next to it was a control dish with no fungus, and radiation sensors connected to Raspberry Pi devices found that the mold was able to reduce radiation levels by about 2 percent, possibly up to 5 percent if it completely surrounded an object as a human shield would.

The team figured that canceling out most of the radiation on Mars would take an 8-inch layer of fungus, but if Martian regolith were factored into the shield, only 3.5 inches would be enough.

The experiment was too simple for the team to distinguish between most of the different types of radiation that made it through the hull of the ISS, though they were able to tell that it was synthesizing gamma radiation.

Particles of cosmic radiation that interact with something like that can make the radiation spectrum that ultimately gets through even worse, making radiation-proofing even more necessary.