Life from Earth might survive on Mars, but not for long

[Mike Wehner]

• NASA goes to great lengths to prevent Earthly microbes from hitching a ride on missions to other worlds like Mars.
• Scientists fear that microorganisms from Earth might contaminate other planets or, even worse, throw off the search for extraterrestrial life.
• New research suggests that NASA's concerns are well warranted, as microbes from Earth could likely survive on the surface of Mars, at least for a while.

As far as we know, there's nothing alive on Mars. Could there be life deep underground, perhaps surviving near sources of water that haven't completely frozen? It's unlikely, but not impossible. Of course, we haven't actually found any such life, so for now we'll have to assume there's nothing there, and NASA would really like to keep it that way.

To that end, the U.S. space agency and others around the world take great care to ensure that their missions to other worlds are as sterile as possible. If a microbe (or many microbes) were to hitch a ride on a rover or orbiter, survive the trip through space, and arrive at its eventual destination, it could contaminate a planet like Mars and make the hunt for extraterrestrial life that much more difficult. A new study published in Frontiers in Microbiology suggests that these concerns are well warranted.

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Life from Earth might survive on Mars, but not for long originally appeared on BGR.com on Sat, 27 Feb 2021 at 10:33:05 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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