BACTERIA taken from Devon cliffs have astonished scientists by surviving for 553 days without oxygen in outer space.

The microbes could now be developed for use in life-support systems for astronauts travelling outside low-Earth orbit, researchers said.

HISTORIC: Beer councillor Mike Green says the space experiment has helped put the village on the map

The cells were taken in chunks of rock from cliffs at Beer and stuck to the exterior of the International Space Station to see how long they could survive in the hostile conditions outside the Earth's atmosphere.

The cells were taken from soil-like chalk deposits which are millions of years old.

Beer is the most extreme westerly point from Dover to have chalk cliffs.

Scientists found many cells were still alive a year and a half after they were launched into space in 2008, despite having been exposed to extreme ultraviolet light, cosmic rays and dramatic shifts in temperature.

The surviving cells, which were selected because they had already survived in such a tough environment, are now thriving in a laboratory at the Open University in Milton Keynes.

Residents of the fishing village are delighted their local geography could have helped in the understanding of space.

Local councillor Mike Green, who helped set up the Beer Heritage Centre, said the use of Beer rocks would go down in the village's history.

"This has helped put our little village on the map, 'the place which ended up in space' you could say," he said.

"All this is good stuff and I am going to document it for people to read.

"Our cliffs are millions of years old and an important part of the Jurassic Coast — a World Heritage Site.

"The soil here obviously provided the sort of sample which scientists needed to send to the space station."

With the study has brought renewed fame for the Norman Lockyer Observatory, at Sidmouth, which celebrates its centenary in 2012.

Former assistant astronomer Donald Barber, who died in 2000 aged almost 100, produced a paper stating how microbes from outer space came to earth.

Gerald White, former secretary of the observatory, said: "The discovery of microbes surviving in space comes as no surprise to us.

"Donald said there was bacteria in space and that it survived."

Richard Edmonds, earth science manager working with the Jurassic coast project said: "All this has helped promote the World Heritage coastline."