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Earth Bacteria May Hitch A Ride To The Stars
An anonymous reader writes "Space.com has an article on how old rocket stages are carrying bacteria from Earth to interstellar space. For example, four upper rocket stages were used to boost deep space probes Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10 and New Horizons. The spacecraft were sterilized, but the rocket stages were not, and they now carry the bacteria of the engineers who handled them. If the rocket stages hit a habitable planet, and the bacteria survive the journey, they would be able to reproduce and colonize the planet ... not that there's a high liklihood of that. 'In 40,000 years, this wayward 185-pound (84 kilogram) lump of metal will pass by the star AC+79 3888 at a distance of 1.64 light-years. ... Given the sheer expanse of time that lies ahead of the four discarded rockets, at least one is likely to eventually encounter a planet. But even if that planet's environment is conducive to life, the long dormant bacteria will not just gently plop into some exotic ocean. No soft landing can be expected.'"
...we'll send all the telephone sanitisers after the discarded rocket stages to clear up any unwanted bacteria. Get 'em loaded in the arc!
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In space, no one can hear bacteria scream
And then some poor alien life forms will contract an illness from the bacteria. This in turn kills off the only other sentient beings besides humans. We will learn of this tragedy from messages recieved from SETI with aliens cursing humans. Oh the irony. Smallpox blankets in space. :P
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Dear Mr Johnson, We are contacting you from the planet Xunxu as you owe twenty five million dollars in child support charges for your population of contribution to our planet.
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Hopefully, the bacteria won't be deemed a biological attack by the technologically advanced (yet extremely vengeful) inhabitants of whatever planet the rocket stage hits.
If planet is habitable, it got to have the atmosphere. Here is a pretty good chance that the stage will just burn-up on entry. I doubt that any bacteria will survive the temperature at which the metal burns.
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More likely for them all to end up in a star/black hole than a planet, or a huge gas giant than a nice habitable planet with water oceans.
It's unlikely to just happen to pass through the "disk" around a star where the planets are at near parallel angle, more likely to come from "above" so to speak and hence unlikely to hit much - of course my understanding of astronomy approaches zero.
Not to mention sterilized by close encounters with a radiation source (like say a star)...
To quote the late Douglas Adams:
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
Will the bacteria hitch-hike to the stars by sticking to towels? After all, a towel is the most important thing for anyone hitchhiking thru the galaxy
First of all the probability that these rockets hit a habitable planet rather than a star or jupiter like object is going to be extremely low no matter what the article claims. The vast maority of bodies in the universe are not habitable and when you add this to the fact that the really heavy (hence gravitationally powerful) ones aren't habitable the odds become really low. Add in the requirement that the planet not only be habitable but actually habitable by earth bugs and that they land safely after a long radiation filled interstellar journey and it starts to get really unlikely.
:-) ).
But even if this is the case what's the big deal. The big reason we want to prevent contamination of mars and similar bodies is for our scientific interest (don't mess up our later experiments). If these organisms colonize some distant planet why is this a bad thing? Now some planet that didn't have any life at all now does. Maybe in a billion years it will evolve spaceships and explore the universe (hell maybe that's how we happened
Either life is common in the universe in which case we just foster a little bit of microbacterial competition (our diseases aren't going to infect complex multicellular aliens) or life is uncommon and we seed a planet with life that might not have otherwise had it. Either way whats the problem?
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Being exposed to the near-vacuum of space for an extended period of time, aren't the bacteria likely to be "pulled apart" at the molecular level?
No, contrary to popular opinion, vacuum does not suck
And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
Where's your prime directive when you really need one?
> Being exposed to the near-vacuum of space for an extended period of time, aren't the bacteria likely to be "pulled apart" at the molecular level?
r s/970603.html
No.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answe
Vacuums are basically harmless. There isn't much difference in the forces involved between being in a vacuum and being at twice ordinary Earth pressure. In fact, humans can survive being unprotected in space for short periods of time, with no permanant damage:
You will of course die if you don't get some oxygen fast. Don't even try holding your breath to get an extra few minutes - the pressure will damage them. Just let the air escape and hope for rescue.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
As all great discoveries start with "gee that's weird.." we can thank the Space Shuttle Columbia for proving to us that bacteria can survive an atmosphere entry and planet impact. http://www.cmu.edu/magazine/03fall/wormsurvive.htm l
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
If chances are that these probes will hit a habitable planet are good then the Sun must surely hit a habitable planet as it moves about the galaxy. In fact every Sun must hae a good chance - they are all moving at roughly the same interstellar speed as the stages, they are much bigger so they have a much bigger change of hitting something ... doesn't seem so likely now? the chances of those stages hitting any planet are ... well astronomical in the best sense. Love that line - space is very big.
For an easier reading about human exposure in space, check out Damn Interesting's article. It's the same facts as the NASA link but written with the idea that you don't need everything phrased in the form of a question and answer.
Actually, the next time we go to mars the lander should plant something hardy, like a cactus, to see what happens.
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
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I thought the nearest star (after Sol, of course) was Proxima Centauri at 4.2 light years? Is this one closer?
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You don't have to hit a planet to kill a Base-Star full of Cylons. They only have to intercept your probe in space. That would seem to increase the odds of doing damage by sending out unclean derbies from Earth.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
It is likely that Mars become more hospitable to life earlier than early by solidifying sooner. Dozens of Martian meterites have been discovered on earth. Perhaps there have been thousands or millions Martian meteorites over the eons. Bacteria have been found living five miles deep in earth where they may have been cut off from the surface from tens of millions of years or longer. They either live extremely slowly or metabolize other nutrients inside rocks. Rocks are excellent insulators from the heat and pressure of bombardment. Some meteors hitting earth are cool inside, even though their out layers have evaporated away from the heat.
Some these all together and you can make a case for bacteria first evolving on Mars and then infecting earth through meteroic hitchhiking, this happening billions of years ago. then they evolved on Earth while Mars became hostile to life.
Isn't that what they call "a stranger"?
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Aside from all the aforementioned problems, we have a small design flaw in our form of organic life: DNA is inherently unstable. Thymine dimerization is energetically favored, and is catalyzed by UV and other forms of radiation. But even apart from radiation, these dimers will form given the passage of time and non-absolute-zero temperatures. Our DNA-based life requires constant molecular upkeep to repair these problems. Any putative bacterial hitch-hikers would have had to sporulate to be able to continue existing without any metabolism, so no upkeep will be possible. Even if they become detached from the booster and are able to avoid a fiery re-entry onto a hospitable planet, they still have to hit it within a few centuries or their information will be irretrievably corrupted.