Space-traveling microbes? An unusual experiment shocked skeptics.

Scientists have discovered that a hardy microbe can endure pressures strong enough to pulverize rock, strengthening the case that life might survive the impact of an asteroid blasting it off a planet.

In a series of experiments at Johns Hopkins University, Lily Zhao fired tiny samples of a microorganism with a room-sized gas gun. The gun drove a steel plate into a thin, carefully prepared layer of bacteria at up to 2.4 gigapascals — tens of thousands of times Earth's atmosphere at sea level.