Italian magazine claims Phoenix contaminated Mars with terrestrial bacteria |
Italian magazine claims Phoenix contaminated Mars with terrestrial bacteria |
Sep 1 2008, 05:04 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 20-January 07 From: Milano, ITALY Member No.: 1633 |
I have just read a short story by Alex Saragosa published on issue 1067 (29 Aug 2008, pag. 61) of the italian magazine "il venerdì", a Friday supplement of the major national newspaper la repubblica. The story, titled "I batteri terrestri hanno invaso il pianeta rosso" (terrestrial bacteria have invaded the red planet), claims a group of JPL bilogists analyzed samples from the room where Phoenix was assembled and found 26,000 bacterial cells per square meter from 100 different species, including highly radiation resistant Bacillus pumilis. According to the story, these bacteria may have survived the trip to Mars.
I have never heard anything similar from reliable sources (i.e. anything but la Repubblica) . Any info? Paolo Amoroso -------------------- Avventure Planetarie - Blog sulla comunicazione e divulgazione scientifica
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Sep 1 2008, 05:54 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 213 Joined: 21-January 07 From: Wigan, England Member No.: 1638 |
I have never heard anything similar from reliable sources (i.e. anything but la Repubblica) . Any info? I recall reading in Science (or similar rag) that a team from JPL originally found 100,000 microbes per sq/m just a few months before launch, and thus requested a more aggressive sterilization program. |
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Sep 1 2008, 06:02 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 101 Joined: 29-January 06 Member No.: 667 |
NASA Astrobiology Magazine
QUOTE AM: What’s the requirement for the upcoming Phoenix mission? CC: Phoenix is going to a place where there is ice beneath the surface. It will not be going to a place where there is ice on the surface. And Phoenix as a lander is a fairly light spacecraft. It doesn’t have a lot of big heavy massive things in it. It also doesn’t have any thermonuclear generators, so it will not be producing its own heat; it runs on solar panels. So based on calculations that were done by the project to document all this to the appropriate level of confidence, the spacecraft itself is not being required to be sterilized because the martian surface at its landing site is not considered to be a special region. |
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