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Could martian research samples carry diseases? Seth Shostak hopes not
Monsters from outer space
Could martian research samples carry diseases? Seth Shostak hopes not
Thursday December 9, 2004
The Guardian
Aids, mad cow disease, and avian flu stalk the globe, and they're problem enough. But some space scientists are suggesting that a new menace might soon join the pantheon of pandemics threatening your bodily wellbeing: bugs from space.
The exotic warning appeared last week in Science, where researchers reported on discoveries made by Nasa's Mars Exploration Rovers. In the last year, these small, motorised geology labs have beamed back convincing evidence that water once formed pools and puddles on the red planet.
Ask any astrobiologist (yes, there are such people), and they will tell you that liquid water is the essential ingredient of life. So it's possible that when Mars was a kinder, gentler and wetter world, perhaps billions of years ago, single-celled living beings made an appearance there. Admittedly, contemporary Mars is brutally cold and dry. But those microbes - if they ever evolved - could still be around, pursuing a spartan lifestyle in underground aquifers.
The problem is this: sometime in the next decade, Nasa hopes to use robots to dig up samples of Mars, and bring them back to Earth. The agency argues, rightly, that this may be the only way to decide whether the red planet has, or had, life. Robotic rovers - as clever as they are - can never match the wits or laboratory equipment of earthly biologists.
Full Story
Seth Shostak is the senior astronomer at the Seti institute, California
Sir Ulli
Monsters from outer space
Could martian research samples carry diseases? Seth Shostak hopes not
Thursday December 9, 2004
The Guardian
Aids, mad cow disease, and avian flu stalk the globe, and they're problem enough. But some space scientists are suggesting that a new menace might soon join the pantheon of pandemics threatening your bodily wellbeing: bugs from space.
The exotic warning appeared last week in Science, where researchers reported on discoveries made by Nasa's Mars Exploration Rovers. In the last year, these small, motorised geology labs have beamed back convincing evidence that water once formed pools and puddles on the red planet.
Ask any astrobiologist (yes, there are such people), and they will tell you that liquid water is the essential ingredient of life. So it's possible that when Mars was a kinder, gentler and wetter world, perhaps billions of years ago, single-celled living beings made an appearance there. Admittedly, contemporary Mars is brutally cold and dry. But those microbes - if they ever evolved - could still be around, pursuing a spartan lifestyle in underground aquifers.
The problem is this: sometime in the next decade, Nasa hopes to use robots to dig up samples of Mars, and bring them back to Earth. The agency argues, rightly, that this may be the only way to decide whether the red planet has, or had, life. Robotic rovers - as clever as they are - can never match the wits or laboratory equipment of earthly biologists.
Full Story
Seth Shostak is the senior astronomer at the Seti institute, California
Sir Ulli
