2 Minutes

Some of the water they have brought back to Earth to use as drinking water has developed a foul odor and bad taste. The crew check the probe and notice a greenish slime beginning to coat the insides of the aircraft's clear plastic water pipes. They scrape some of the green stuff off inside of a pipe and look at it under a microscope with 100x magnification. The cells they see are still very small even under that magnification. They cannot see any nucleus or other structures inside the cells. What are these small organisms? Select the best answer.

HINT: The lack of nucleus indicates it is a prokaryote.

A) virus

B) blue-green algae

C) green algae
HELP

Please send any comments to:
Curator:
Tom.Benson@grc.nasa.gov
Responsible Official: Kathy.Zona@grc.nasa.gov