Let a Mars Rover Rove

In the near future, human beings will probably set foot on the planet Mars. Human beings will likely do a lot of other things on Mars too: coughing, sneezing, peeing, pooping… it won’t be long until Mars is thoroughly contaminated with our germs.

We may have contaminated Mars already, at least a teeny bit, with our robotic space probes. You see, these probes may not have been as thoroughly cleaned and sterilized as they were supposed to be before they left Earth. Consequently, our Mars rovers, like the Curiosity rover, are forbidden from entering or even approaching sites where liquid water may be present.

This is to ensure that we don’t endanger any native Martian life that could hypothetically be living in those watery areas. It’s also to ensure that we don’t misidentify Earth germs as native Martian microbes at some point in the future.

But according to this paper published in the journal Astrobiology, we really should lighten up and let our Mars rovers do their jobs. We’ve spent billions on these robots, and we’re not using them to their best. While there is some risk of contamination, it’s only a small risk, or so the authors of the paper claim.

First off, the Martian environment is extremely cold, there’s lots of radiation, and an abundance of harsh, oxidizing chemicals in the soil. In short, Mars can do a better job sterilizing out space probes than we can. The very few Earth germs that might have made it to Mars thus far wouldn’t be able to spread far.

As for misidentifying an Earth germ as a Martian microorganism, the authors of the paper claim this wouldn’t be a problem. At this point, we have a pretty good idea which Earthly bacteria could have hitched a ride to Mars, because we know which bacteria were later found in the clean rooms where our space probes were built. Those bacteria can be easily identified with gene sequencing.

So let’s send the Mars rovers in. Let them do their jobs. Let them study Mars’s recurring slope lineae and other watery features, or any other areas where life could possibly exist. Let’s do this now, while the risk of contamination is still relatively low, because the humans are coming, and they’re bringing a whole lot more germs with them!

Or maybe not! As I’ve said before, these kinds of scientific papers should be understood not as final declarations of fact but as part of an ongoing conversation among scientists. In tomorrow’s post, we’ll talk about the other side of the argument.