The search for life on Mars presents us with many challenges – not the least of which is microbial contamination. How do we ensure that microbes from Earth don't hitchhike all the way to the Red Planet and spread there? When a spacecraft is on the surface of Mars, what steps are needed to protect the environment from changes that could hurt any Martian life that is there?
Finally, once we do scoop up potential microbes for analysis on Earth, how do we ensure that the Mars sample doesn't pose a risk to humans and other creatures on our planet? As biologist John Rummel recalls, the lesson of the H.G. Wells book The War of the Worlds, a fictional book about a Martian invasion, is that even microbes can be deadly.
"The important thing about planetary protection is it's a two-way affair," said Rummel, who was with East Carolina University as a biologist when he led the team that published a recent study on the possibilities of the growth of Earth life on or under the surface of Mars.
"The idea is to not take microbes to places where you would have them grow and multiply on a planet, and in particular, affect the ability to find what was there before Earth contamination. We don't want to contaminate what we want to study. The other thing is, if there is any life there, it's uncertain if it would pose a danger to the Earth's biosphere if we brought a sample back robotically, or with Mars astronauts returning to Earth."
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