International Space Station (ISS)

Living alien bacteria were found on the surface of the International Space Station (ISS), and they might have extraterrestrial origins, Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said. The microorganisms will be studied further on Earth.Shkaplerov, an ISS expedition flight engineer who will take his third trip to the ISS in December as part of the Expedition 54 crew, said that scientists found living bacteria while they were taking samples from the surface of the station. Speaking to TASS, he said that the microorganisms might have come from outer space.Bacteria that had not been there during the launch of the ISS module were found on the swabs,” Shkaplerov said. “So they have flew from somewhere in space and settled on the outside hull.”Earlier this year, during experiment "shape-shifting" was also been detected in bacteria in the near-weightlessness of space, and is believed to help the bacteria survive.Some of the bacterial cells were also spotted producing membrane vesicles, small capsules that form outside of the cell walls and act as messengers for cells to communicate with each other.