Interplanetary contamination

Interplanetary contamination, also called forward contamination, is the hypothetical contamination of a sterile planetary body by human spacecraft, either deliberate or unintentional. This is considered a potential form of directed panspermia. Currently, international agreements cover the sterility of spacecraft that leave Earth under the Outer Space Treaty and the COSPAR guidelines for planetary protection.

Resilience of life in space

It is expected that the harsh environments encountered throughout the rest of the Solar System do not seem to support complex terrestrial life; however, certain extremophiles may be resilient enough to survive space travel to possibly contaminate a sterile planet or planetoid.^{[citation needed]}

On 26 April 2012, scientists reported that lichen survived and showed remarkable results on the adaptation capacity of photosynthetic activity within the simulation time of 34 days under Martian conditions in the Mars Simulation Laboratory (MSL) maintained by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Prevention of contamination

Galileo spacecraft

• The Galileo spacecraft was deliberately crashed into Jupiter at the end of the mission in order to avoid contaminating any of the moons of Jupiter.^{[citation needed]}

Apollo missions

All of the manned Apollo missions that landed on the Moon (11, 12, & 14-17), leave open the possibility of the contamination of the lunar surface by the astronauts when they exited the lunar module.

Surveyor 3

The Surveyor 3 Moon probe, launched by NASA, may have had a camera lens contaminated by Streptococcus mitis before launch. This was discovered when the camera was returned to Earth by the Apollo 12 mission; however, the time of the contamination is inconclusive and may have occurred after the camera was returned to Earth.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Back-contamination - The theoretical contamination of Earth's biosphere from microbial extraterrestrial organisms.
• Panspermia
• Surveyor 3 - It is claimed that a common type of bacteria, Streptococcus mitis, accidentally contaminated the Surveyor's camera prior to launch, and that the bacteria survived two years until discovered by Apollo 12.
• Venera 9 - USSR mission to Venus that may have been partially contaminated prior to launch.

External links

• GYRE.org Mars Robot may have destroyed evidence of life
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch Scientists fear Interplanetary Contamination in new Mars missions
• Wired Magazine Water Bears Are Headed for a Martian Moon