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When you can do that, you're called an extremophile.

Organisms that can survive in this suspended, or anabiotic, state, Yarzábal explained, include not just extremophile bacteria but also viruses, fungi, protozoa and microscopic animals called nematodes.

But it won’t arrive until 2031 and that’s only one icy world that could be home to life — most recently, it was reported that Miranda, a moon of Uranus, might be another candidate for extremophile life that can flourish under intense cold.

So, Ralf Moeller and colleagues investigated whether they could identify an extremophile by using its protein signature rather than a gene sequence.

These extremophile microbes are of interest to astrobiologists who are searching for life on other planets.