Originally published June 15 2005
Earth microbes may survive on Mars
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A NewScientist.com article describes how certain microbes transported to Mars via an unsterilized spacecraft may stand a chance of survival against the powerful UV rays if proper nutrient and water supplies were met.
The research suggests scientists should take extra care when analysing potential signs of life during future missions to the Red Planet.
Most spacecraft that touch down on Mars have not been thoroughly sterilised by heat or radioactivity - so they carry with them living microbes from Earth.
But Mars's thin atmosphere allows such intense ultraviolet radiation to reach the planet's surface - triple that found on Earth - that any life inadvertently carried on the spacecraft is thought to be wiped out quickly.
Under such a protective coating, the bacteria "could survive - and potentially grow - under the high Martian UV flux if water and nutrient requirements for growth were met", write the researchers in the journal Astrobiology.
"We think there are places on Mars where Earth life could make a living," says John Rummel, NASA's planetary protection officer in Washington, DC, who is charged with preventing microbes from contaminating worlds beyond Earth.
He says this study shows "even the toughest stuff doesn't survive for long" on the surface of spacecraft, but he says live microbes probably do take shelter within the spacecraft bodies.
So if a Mars rover fell off a cliff or a spacecraft broke open in a crash - like NASA's lost Mars Polar Lander may have - these microbes might find a toehold for survival provided they landed in the right place, he says.
The study revealed that the "biogenic" signs of life, including the molecular signatures of DNA and chlorophyll, are detectable for hours - and perhaps much longer - after the bacteria themselves have died.
So Schuerger says future lander missions to Mars should contain experiments to detect both life itself - in the form of live cells - as well as these signature molecules.
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