While the NASA rover “Perserverance” and China’s remote-controlled land vehicle “Zhurong” are currently searching for signs of life on Mars, the professor at an elite American university on earth points out that microbial life discovered on the red planet is not necessarily of Martian origin have to be.
New York – Christopher Mason, Professor of Biophysics at the renowned Cornell University in New York, believes it is possible that space travelers inadvertently take terrestrial bacteria with them on their journeys into space. Despite intensive cleaning processes of their equipment and the assembly of spacecraft in rooms equipped and sterilized with special air filters.
In an in-depth article for the BBC, Mason writes that it is “almost impossible” to “get to zero biomass in a spaceship.” They are in us, on our bodies and all around us. Some can nestle and multiply even in the cleanest of spaces. “
Traces of life on Mars could originally have come from Earth
In two recent studies in which Mason was involved, the researchers examined how some organisms could survive the cleaning process and also the journey to Mars * and how quickly microbial species can grow in space. “It turns out that clean spaces could serve as a natural selection process for the most resilient microorganisms (bacteria, fungi and viruses), which then have a greater chance of surviving a trip to Mars,” he wrote.
As soon as these microbes arrive on Mars, what happens to scholars as “forward contamination” occurs. The term describes the process when earthly life forms reach other heavenly bodies – intentionally and unintentionally – and contaminate them. Mason warned that the microbes can “wreak havoc” when they arrive in a new ecosystem. This has to be prevented, which is why space programs require a great deal of sterilization effort.
According to this, any traces of microbacterial life that have already been discovered on Mars do not necessarily have to be of Martian origin. NASA * said it has taken additional precautions to ensure that all samples returned from Mars are kept safe. However, scientists understand that tests need to be done to ensure that the results are not of terrestrial origin. * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
