Space exploration agencies now and in the future face a tall challenge: protecting life on Earth from potential alien microbes and defending potential aliens against contamination from Earth, too
The Martian environment isn’t currently understood with any sort of detailed sophistication, which could pose threats to human missions to Mars, according to Catharine Conley, NASA’s planetary protection officer. For example, “bleach flying in the dust in Mars” could potentially be a human health hazard, Conley said in an interview with Space.com. – READ MORE