An Israeli spacecraft called Beresheet almost made it to the moon in April. It took a selfie with the lunar surface in the background, but then lost contact with Earth and presumably crashed onto the lunar surface. Now it’s been revealed that the mission was carrying a cargo of dehydrated microscopic lifeforms known as tardigrades. Beresheet was the first stage of a privately-funded initiative to transfer living DNA to the moon. The project is designed to act as Noah’s Ark Mark II, providing a repository from which plants and animals could be regenerated to repopulate the Earth should a catastrophe…

This story continues at The Next Web