Earth Microbes May Survive On Mars

Vicissidude writes "New Scientist is reporting that terrestrial microbes who hitch a ride to Mars on spacecraft may be able to survive under special circumstances." From the article: "...Mars's thin atmosphere allows such intense ultraviolet radiation to reach the planet's surface - triple that found on Earth - that any life inadvertently carried on the spacecraft is thought to be wiped out quickly...However, the bacteria were able to stay alive if they were shielded by just 1 millimeter of soil during the tests, which ran for up to 24 hours. Under such a protective coating, the bacteria could survive - and potentially grow - under the high Martian UV flux if water and nutrient requirements for growth were met."

Comments

Planting life?

[bagel2ooo]

So does this mean that if we are able to find suitable water deposits but either not enough life for it to foster or none at all, that we would be able to plant certain bacteria that would be able to start a green house effect to vent off ice caps into atmosphere and "seed" life on Mars?

Re:Planting life?

[KiloByte]

I assume that "triple the UV that reaches Earth" is a mistake, as that would make it close to Australia -- and somehow, judging from pesky Aussies blabbing around on /., there is no massive dying there -- but, selecting species that can survive the radiation is not that hard. We have bacteria that can survive both at temperatures of nearly +100 degrees and -60, we have bacteria that don't need oxygen, we have those who can live in a chloric atmosphere. We wouldn't even have to do any direct genetic manipulation other than simply selection.

This goes for surviving the UV. Getting water is something we are already able to do -- even if we don't have it in ready form, oxygen and hydrogen come in plentiful supplies. And for the nutrients, just take some protists with you. Heck, they most likely will be able to use the UV for photosynthesis.

Terraforming Mars is more a matter of a huge engineering project, as the technology we need is already discovered.

Re:Planting life?

[KiloByte]

Right, this means that in a period of million years the atmosphere we put on Mars will be mostly gone.
And the terraforming we're talking about will take what, 100-1000 years? When the atmosphere escapes into space, we can simply repeat the process (assuming no maintenance on the way).

Exploition for Terra-Forming

[kiljoy001]

Could this be a way to terra form mars for colonzation over a long period of time ?

Re:Exploition for Terra-Forming

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Mars has insufficient gravity to support an atmosphere thick enough for humans to breathe.

There's the problem then; your humans need adjusting.

More than just microbes, tardigrades

[Ray Alloc]

Tardigrades are incredibly resilient lifeforms, which may very well survive on Mars, it's a kind of "over-evolved" 0.1 mm beast, you can find everywhere.

Not just spacecraft: also meteorites

[colonist]

Not just spacecraft: Earth microbes can hitch a ride to Mars on meteorites, too.

Just as meteorites from Mars are found on Earth (eg. in Antarctica), meteorites from Earth may reach Mars, and these meteorites may carry microbes. Some scientists think there's an exchange of biological material between the two planets.

The Mars rover Opportunity recently found an iron meteorite on Mars.

Viking experiment problems

[PxM]

When the 1976 Viking experiments detected possible signs of life, one of the suspects was bacteria from Earth. Since it was believed that life wouldn't surive the trip to Mars, the validity of this hypothesis compared to the idea that the bacteria is Martian (or the idea that it was a false positive due to nonliving sources) has been the debate of scientists for a while. We'll have to wait until someone recovers the Viking probes to know the true source of that possible signature.

May Survive

[jazman_777]

Ah, that lovely word, "may". With the word MAY, everything is possible. Why, for all we know, unicorns MAY exist!