Humanity is concerned about the issue of accidentally introducing living Earth microorganisms to another planet. Scientists suggest using the experience gained from studying how invasive species survive on various islands for this purpose.
Problem of contamination with microorganisms
Someday, people will settle on other planets. However, it is quite possible that they will not be the first living beings from Earth to exist there. Microorganisms can reach other celestial bodies aboard automatic vehicles.
In fact, there is nothing good about this, because if Martian life exists, invasive species from Earth could easily destroy it. A recent article published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface is devoted precisely to the question of how we can correctly assess the risks of such infection.
Space agencies are now approaching this issue by assessing the likelihood that microorganisms will survive the journey through space and landing on another planet. For example, NASA considers it sufficient for the probability of this not to exceed 0.1%. And all measures for sterilizing spacecraft are aimed at accomplishing this task.
Islands
All of this, according to the authors of the new study, is completely wrong. After all, if we are already discussing the problem of invasive species, we need to take advantage of the experience that science has in colonizing isolated habitats. This is especially true for islands.
And scientific data shows that the percentage probability that the body will survive the journey is irrelevant in itself. The decisive factor is whether an animal, plant, fungus, or microorganism can establish a stable population on the island; otherwise, it will inevitably disappear.
Whether the organism can take root is determined by the biogeographical characteristics of the island. Simply put, will it find conditions there for survival and reproduction, or not? Therefore, instead of trying to ensure some abstract survival rate for “microbes in general” and devising expensive and ineffective procedures to achieve this, we need to start by determining which microorganisms will survive in the environment of that planet or moon.
It makes no sense to invent methods of protection against living creatures that will surely die there without leaving any offspring. It is worth focusing on preventing the few species that are capable of reproducing in new conditions from getting on board. Or better yet, make sure they don’t survive the journey or don’t even get on board, with zero probability.
According to phys.org
