I could use a vacation. In fact, I’ll catch a flight right now! Here I go—whoosh—off to France!
This is my life all the time. Why? Because I’m a microbe.
Microbes like me can be bacteria, viruses, fungi—that sort of thing. We’re microscopic organisms, some of us made of only a single cell. We’re everywhere, from the deepest ocean to the highest mountaintop. We’re also in the air all around, riding the breeze up, up, up into sky.
Interested in seeing the Sahara? Antarctica? Mount Everest? I’ve been there, done that. The atmosphere is full of us microbes soaring off to new destinations. We tend to like the troposphere, where clouds provide moisture and humidity, but a few of us make it even higher into the stratosphere.
Much as I enjoy my global travels, for a microbe, reaching the sky is less like hopping on a plane and more like getting launched by a catapult. Human activity like industry and agriculture can jettison microbes, as can natural events. A hurricane, for example, is a major microbe catapult. But so too is the everyday breaking of waves, which throw microbes from the sea into the air.
Yet this isn’t luxury travel—in the atmosphere, many of us die from freezing temperatures, UV exposure, or lack of water. Sometimes we float back down to Earth simply due to gravity. Other times, we hitch a ride on rain or snow, which deposits us—plop!—pretty quickly.
Scientists aren’t certain, yet, whether microbes are eating and reproducing in the atmosphere, or if we’re just airborne travelers. At the moment, that’s my microscopic secret. For now, good-bye! Adieu!
