Cell Recoverability and Metabolism of Three Extremophiles During Long Term Sub-Zero Incubations, 2019-2020

Liquid water is essential to life as we know it, yet most planets and moons in our solar system have surface temperatures well below the freezing point of pure water. As part of an effort to identify potential biosignatures and biosignature targets for upcoming space-exploration life detection missions, three strains of psychrophilic bacteria with varying salinity tolerances were incubated at -5, -10, and -36 degrees Celsius [°C] for long-term (12 month) laboratory incubations. Organisms were examined for observable cells, metabolic activity, and recoverability regularly over the course of this incubation. This dataset includes the raw data as well as calculated metabolic activity rates. This research was undertaken at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington, Seattle between 2019 and 2020.