Italian magazine claims Phoenix contaminated Mars with terrestrial bacteria Options

[Paolo Amoroso]

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

[Del Palmer]

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.

[01101001]

NASA Astrobiology Magazine

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.

[01101001]

New Scientist (so be skeptical): Could microbes on Phoenix survive on Mars?

To fill this gap, a team from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, US, took a census of all microbial life living in the Phoenix assembly room as the mission progressed.
About four months before launch, in April 2007, at least 100,000 microbial cells – including 132 different kinds of bacteria – covered each square metre of the room. In June, the JPL team found evidence for at least 35,000 cells per square metre, belonging to 45 different kinds of bacteria – a decrease most likely due to stepped-up cleaning efforts.
Around the time of launch in August, the room boasted at least 26,000 cells per square metre and 100 kinds of bacteria.

This sounds like the source of the Italian story.