Panspermia previously thought to be inhospitable for life. Living bacteria found in ice core samples retrieved from deep at Lake Vostok in Antarctica, have provided data for extrapolations to the likelihood of microorganisms surviving frozen in extraterrestrial habitats or during interplanetary transport. Also, bacteria have been discovered living within warm rock deep in the Earth's crust. In order to test some these organisms' potential resilience in outer space, plant seeds and spores of bacteria, fungi and ferns have been exposed to the harsh space environment. Spores are produced as part of the normal life cycle of many plants, algae, fungi and
Gasteroid fungi described by Linnaeus in his original "Species Plantarum" of 1753, but the first critical treatment of the group was by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in his "Synopsis methodica fungorum" of 1801. Until 1981, this book was the starting point for the naming of Gasteromycetes under the "International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants". Although the starting point was subsequently put back to 1753, names of gasteroid fungi used in Persoon's book are still sanctioned and cannot be replaced by earlier names. Elias Magnus Fries introduced the name Gasteromycetes for a class of fungi in his "Systema Mycologicum" of 1821,