Israel's satellite that crashed on the moon carried human dna as well as a large number of tartagrades that were dehydrated, a state from which they emerge in full life and would not die due to exposure on the moon. Israel got its launch licenses without notifying what was on board - not illegal, but seriously bad form. Beyond that, we are following protocols for decontamination that were set 50 years ago for our Apollo missions. If we're going to ever determine whether life formed on other planets, we have to stop distributing our bio across our solar system. Beyond that, it would be good if we visited some of the sites where satellites landed to see if our bio pollution is present. https://www.wired.com/story/a-crashed-israeli-lunar-lander-spilled-tardigrades-on-the-moon/
Tardigrades eat other microscopic life, right? If they flourish on mars, would that be evidence of life on mars? (I don't know what else tardigrades eat, but arent they too complex to subsist entirely off mineral?)
Good points. I think the larger issue is that Earth's direction today is not benig careful about contaminating the places we visit. In this case, Earthly biomatter got splattered on the Moon. And, it's not just Israel. Our own practices are 50 year old remnents of Apollo days. And, who knows what China, India are doing or what private industry will do. This practice is going to make it harder to be sure of what we find when we go back to look in greater detail.
Tardigrades need water to come out of hibernation. They have survived experimentally in outer space, but again, they need water in order to live. They will do nothing on the moon, unless they are rehydrated.
In fact, one site I found suggests they need atmosphere as well as water in order to recover from dehydration. But, not to be overly repetitive, I think the real problem in this case is that earth life related compounds got sprayed across a section of lunar realestate. In general, that kind of mistake carried out on our various explorations makes it harder to determine what originated on the places we visit and what came from biorefuse that we added. I think there are 9 sites where manmade objects have landed or crashed on Mars, starting in the 1970's with Russia.
Right. But I was wondering about Mars. I agree with the poster that we should caution against accidental contamination, but deliberate contamination might be beneficial down the line. Theres water on mars. So far as we know its all frozen, but perhaps theres some traces of liquid water here and there (and perhaps small colonies of simple life). We can't find it, but bombarding the planet with tardigrades and checking to see if they flourish a decade or so later could be one method of determining whether there was water/nutrients. I'm not saying we should... I just really like tardigrades and I think shooting a bunch of them at Mars would be fun.
We should certainly be cautious on Mars. But I'm not any more worried about the moon than I am the sun. Shoot rockets full of garbage at both of em afaic. Whats it gonna hurt? Theres definitively no environment nor any potentiality of an environment on either. **** the moon!
Well, realistically speaking, you can't have liquid water without an atmosphere. I agree it is sloppy and short-sighted to not completely sterilize anything going out there.
