MARS: COULD MARTIAN ROCK SAMPLES CONTAMINATE OUR PLANET WITH MICROBES?
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are teaming up to return a sample of Martian material to Earth in the 2030s, but that has provoked fears in some quarters that we could be bringing back more than just rock and air. Could we inadvertently contaminate Earth’s biosphere with Martian microbes?
The scientific desire for a Mars sample return is clear. The Moon rocks returned to the Earth by the Apollo astronauts over half a century ago
