7 ms·
"The research touches on this, and it warns astronauts to follow recommended planetary protection protocols designed to prevent visiting spacecraft from contami
by wwwtyro 7y ago
"The research touches on this, and it warns astronauts to follow recommended planetary protection protocols designed to prevent visiting spacecraft from contaminating other planets and moons in our solar system with microorganisms from Earth. The study suggests that, because of the risk of contamination, these fungal spores may need to be considered a more serious threat."
This makes me wonder if we've accidentally already started terraforming Mars.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoThings already go through decontamination.
- tomxor 7y agobut decontamination is always relative, otherwise you will destroy the thing you are "decontaminating".
- nck4222 7y agoThings already survive decontamination.
- jodrellblank 7y agoPrions on Mars.
- delecti 7y agoI'm more excited by the prospect that we've started terraforming Venus. It has an atmosphere, and with a lot of CO2. Wouldn't take many surviving plant microbes on one of the probes we've sent to start things off. Get the CO2 under control and in a few million years it might be downright balmy.
- Retric 7y agoEdit: ops grand parent mentioned Mars and it’s atmosphere is extremely thin. For comparison at 35,000 feet on earth it’s 3.4 psi. On mars at ground level it’s 0.088 psi. Add in being 53% further from the sun and would take quite a bit to make Mars habitable. Venus has the opposite problem sitting much closer to the sun and with much higher atmospheric pressure.
- mrfusion 7y agoI think the big problem is that there is no water on Venus though?
- throwaway5752 7y agoThe problem is there's very little hydrogen on Venus. It has next to no magnetic field, too. Days last 243 Earth days. There are a lot of problems with Venus.
- thechao 7y agoThis sounds like a conversation between a used-planet-salesman & a middle-aged couple who’re ‘just looking’.
- Analemma_ 7y agoCorrect me if I’m wrong, but terraforming Venus’s atmosphere wouldn’t do anything about the pressure, right? Even if all that CO2 became oxygen, and it cooled off a bit, Venus would still have almost 100 atmospheres of pressure at the surface and still be basically uninhabitable.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoBecause of the thickness of the atmosphere, Venus is probably more suited to floating cloud cities.
- guenthert 7y agoWell, at this time, we're venusforming Terra though.
- nickserv 7y agoI think it's not impossible, it could simply be a matter of the hitchhiking microbes to come into contact with liquid water.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- CydeWeys 7y agoSeriously, is this a threat or is it the unexpected boon of getting a jump-start on terraforming? If you could press a button and "contaminate" Mars with life that would start spreading and generating an oxygen atmosphere, wouldn't you?
- not2b 7y agoIt would mean you have a much harder time finding out if Mars once had life, if instead you're detecting mold that hitched a ride with your spacecraft.
- CydeWeys 7y agoThat's fine though. Having a second home for humanity is more important than maximally preserving the ability to detect past life (note that we wouldn't be eliminating that ability, just hindering it somewhat). Also, we think we'd be able to tell pretty easily whether any life detected is from Earth (i.e. we brought it along with us). Life that isn't descended from the same tree of life as us is likely to be radically different.
- andai 7y agoAssuming they originated independently, sure. Panspermia (see other comments) suggests that life from one planet might easily end up on another, or that both may originate elsewhere.
- fucking_tragedy 7y agoMars will never be able to be a "second home" for humanity: it lacks the ability to maintain an atmosphere that can support humans due to its weak magnetic field. The bottom of the ocean would be far more habitable if we faced any type of extinction event.
- bjelkeman-again 7y agoIt may be possible to create a magnetic field to protect the atmosphere. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#Protecting_the_atmosphere https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#Protect...
- eevilspock 7y agoIf these spores are evolving new properties under the conditions of space, is there danger of contaminating Earth with "super mould"?
- rightbyte 7y agoThe space mould would probably be at a disadvantage on earth right? Any systematic evolution would go towards low gravity and radiation resiliance.