Posted on 03/23/2013 6:37:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Since its daredevil landing on Mars last summer, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been avidly exploring its new home in Gale Crater. But there’s been one worry that several people have voiced since Curiosity launched — what if the rover contaminates the surface of Mars with Earth life?
Mars and Earth are very different places. Earth’s butterscotchy little brother is a dry and gelid little world. Among its other hazards are surface pressures approaching 1000 times lower than at Earth’s sea level, temperatures which can be low enough to freeze carbon dioxide, and practically no oxygen. Full of curiosity of their own, Wayne Nicholson and Andrew Schuerger, a pair of microbiologists based at the University of Florida, decided to see if certain Earth microbes could take some punishment.
They didn’t choose just any old bacteria though. The microbes in question were taken from samples of Russian permafrost, collected over 12 meters (40 feet) below ground. These bacteria were first nurtured for 28 days in nutrient-rich dishes kept at normal Earth conditions. Then around 10,000 colonies of the bacteria were subjected to 30 days of conditions intended to mimic Mars, at temperatures of 0°C (32°F) and a pressure of just 7 millibars — the same pressure on the surface of Mars.
Six of the bacterial colonies tested, containing a strain known as carnobacterium, managed to grow under these harsh conditions. In fact, surprisingly, the carnobacterium colonies grew better at low pressures and without oxygen than they did under more normal conditions. The reasons why aren’t entirely clear. Schuerger commented, “It appears that at low pressures, an unknown mechanism might kick in that helps them increase the range in which they can grow.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
If you’re gonna go places, you’re gonna contaminate them. No way around it.
So how about we send a batch of oxygen-producing microbes there and begin terra-forming?
Of course.
Look at the way alien germs colonized earth and evolved into humans duh.
Probably, already in the works at multiple sites.
You mean Democrats and Liberals and Muslims are going to fly to Mars? Spiffy.
I would run a test with some democrats first.
Obviously they were not perfectly adapted to a high oxygen high pressue atmosphere!
And so the propaganda campaign to halt exploration and colonization begins.
Not if Nanny Bloomberg has anything to say about it.
Another good question: Did Mars germs colonize Earth?
Another good question: Did Mars germs colonize Earth?
duh. Men are from mars. Women are from Venus.
"..I'll bring the little snots eyeballs with me and let ya know"
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If possible, I reckon that would be a start. BTW, see very cold places at high elevations on our own planet: relatively sterile. —Mr. Cold
Turnabout is fair play.
“From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man’s weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet’s infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain.”
And scatter some grass seed...
I’m sure that Martian women and minorities were disproportionately effected.
Of course, the only condition they could not mimic - whatever that means in their reality - is Mars’ lower gravity, which, according to still other scientists’ claims, greatly influences an organism's survivability.
Yes, we do not want to contaminate or inadvertently terraform Mars. Why, what would our children think of us, ruining it for them and all? They might get so outraged, if Mars turned blue or green, that they would violently shove us out the door of the old folks home!
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