• Question: can you get biohazards in space? if so some examples?

    Asked by greywolf01 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 12 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Catherine Rix

      Catherine Rix answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      There is a whole area of space science called planetary protection and contamination control. it’s designed to stop us contaminating other planets with Earth microbes and also to protect the Earth from any contaminants we might bring back. If we bought a sample back from Mars we would have to handle it using special equipment until we were sure it was safe and didn’t contain anything that would make us sick, or damage the environment on Earth. So yes, there could be!

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      We have done experiments that show that some microorganisms are able to survive a passage through space. They don’t necessarily grow and thrive, but they manage to get by.

      A lot of space agencies are trying to get samples back from asteroids, comets and other planets. If we manage it, this means that there’s a small possibility that those samples could have bugs in them, and they might be able to survive to get back to earth.

      However, it’s very unlikely that they’d be hazardous to us, as diseases tend to be specifically adapted to a particular species. Even so, we try and make the preparations so that they can’t harm us, like Catherine says, by having planetary protection controls.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      Tardigrades are the hardiest little animal that can survive in the icy, emptiness of space, but since they only live in moss and drink water, they aren’t much of a biohazard. Plenty of bacteria could survive in space for quite a long time though.

      Like Catherine when Adam said, there are lots of rules for protecting our planet from weird alien bugs that are brought back as samples, but its important to think about how much of a biohazard *earth* life would be to the aliens.

      The first spaceships and probes sent to mars and the moon were not sterile and contained lots of bacteria from the scientists who built them. Under some conditions these could survive space and land on another planet and possibly attack native alien life without meaning to. We’re a lot more careful now and all of our probes are sterilised, but perhaps *we* are the biohazard in space!

Comments