microbes
The International Space Station Gets a Clean Bill of Health. Despite a Few Opportunistic Microbes, the Station is “Safe” for Astronauts
In a recent study published in Microbiome, a team of researchers led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted a five-year…
Animals Could Have Been Around Hundreds of Millions of Years Earlier Than Previously Believed
According to new Earth sciences research, the oldest fossilized remains of animal life may have been found in the Canadian…
Did Ancient Martian Life Eat Rocks For Food?
Some lucky astronomers get to work with some of the rarest material in the world. Real Martian meteorites are extraordinarily…
Microbes Were Dormant for Over 100 Million Years, But They Were Able to Spring Back to Life
At the bottom of the ocean in the South Pacific Gyre, there's a sediment layer that is among the most…
A NASA Panel Says We Don’t Need to be so Careful About Infecting Other Worlds
It's time to update the rules. That's the conclusion of a panel that examined NASA's rules for planetary protection. It…
Astronomy Cast Ep. 514: Planetary Protection Protocols
As we send rovers and landers to other worlds, we have to think about the tiny microbial astronauts we're sending…
Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria has been Found on the Space Station’s Toilet
NASA keeps a close eye on the bacteria inhabiting the International Space Station with a program called the Microbial Observatory…
What’s that Strange Glowing Mold? Astronauts will Soon be Able to Sequence Unknown Space Organisms
Building on the success of their Biomolecule Sequencer, NASA is launching the Genes in Space-3 project to give astronauts the…
Will We Contaminate Europa?
Europa is probably the best place in the Solar System to go searching for life. But before they're launched, any…
Why Earth’s Spores Could Survive A Trip to Mars
Here's a finding to give planetary protectionists pause: two species of spores mounted on the International Space Station's hull a…