We really, really can’t contaminate other planets with Earth microbes

[Mike Wehner]

• A pair of new NASA directives tweaks Planetary Protection policies to allow for human exploration of the Moon and Mars
• Preventing contamination of other worlds is vitally important to making new discoveries and not changing the planets or worlds that we visit.
• Bringing microbes from Earth to Mars or the Moon could have big impacts on our ability to find true extraterrestrial life.

NASA is eager to explore other worlds and, if possible, discover evidence of past or present life somewhere in our solar system. It would be a monumental achievement and rewrite history books in the process, but there's one thing that NASA definitely wants to avoid while it explores, and that's contaminating other worlds with life from Earth.

To that end, the space agency just issued new directives to bolster its already strict planetary protection policies. The goal is to ensure that when humans head to other worlds — including the Moon and Mars — we don't accidentally bring microbial life with us or, on the off-chance that there is something alive on Mars or the Moon, that we don't bring that life back with us.

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We really, really can’t contaminate other planets with Earth microbes originally appeared on BGR.com on Sat, 11 Jul 2020 at 14:08:47 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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